"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?"
"There are many things to be said on this subject," said he, in a sententious tone, thinking that his intervention might be useful in getting his friend out of the awkward position in which he found himself, "an infinite number of things may be said; books without number have been written upon this subject. Every one has his own system and plan of conduct as to the way of looking at and acting upon it."