“Let us go,” said Bergenheim in a low voice, taking his guest by the arm. Gerfaut threw a glance around him and sought Clemence’s eyes, but he did not find them. Without troubling herself as to her aunt’s despair, Clemence had hurried to her room; for she felt the necessity of solitude in order to calm her emotions, or perhaps to live them over a second time. Octave resigned himself to following his companion. At the end of a few moments, the barking of the dogs, the joking of the hunters, even the wind in the trees and the rustling leaves, had bored Octave to such an extent that, in spite of himself, his face betrayed him.
“What a doleful face you have!” exclaimed his host, laughingly. “I am sorry that I took you away from Madame de Bergenheim; it seems that you decidedly prefer her society to ours.”
“Would you be very jealous if I were to admit the fact?” replied Octave, making an effort to assume the same laughing tone as the Baron.
“Jealous! No, upon my honor! However, you are well constituted to give umbrage to a poor husband.
“But jealousy is not one of my traits of character, nor among my principles.”
“You are philosophical!” said the lover, with a forced smile.
“My philosophy is very simple. I respect my wife too much to suspect her, and I love her too much to annoy her in advance with an imaginary trouble. If this trouble should come, and I were sure of it, it would be time enough to worry myself about it. Besides, it would be an affair soon settled.”
“What affair?” asked Marillac, slackening his pace in order to join in the conversation.
“A foolish affair, my friend, which does not concern you, Monsieur de Gerfaut, nor myself any longer, I hope; although I belong to the class exposed to danger. We were speaking of conjugal troubles.”
The artist threw a glance at his friend which signified: “What the deuce made you take it into your head to start up this hare?”