“‘Qui s’excuse, s’accuse,’ says the adage,” rejoined she gaily: “I neither do one nor the other. At the same time, let me confess to one thing of which I am capable, which is, of detesting any one who in this age of the world affects to give a tone of moralizing to a conversation. Now I presume you don’t wish this. I will even take it for granted, that you would rather we were good friends, as we used to be long ago.—Oh dear, don’t sigh that way!”
“It was you that sighed!”
“Well, I am very sorry for it. It was wrong of me, and very wrong of you to tell me of it. But dear me! is it so late? can it really be three o’clock?”
“I am a quarter past; but I think we must both be fast. You are going out?”
“A mere drive in the Champs Elysées, where I shall pay a few visits and be back to dinner. Will you dine with us?”
“I pray you to excuse me—don’t forget I am a sick man.”
“Well, then, we shall see you at the Opera?”
“I fear not. If I might ask a favour, it would be to take the volume of Balzac away with me.”
“Oh, to be sure! But we have some others, much newer. You know ‘Le Recherche de l’Absolu’, already?”
“Yes; but I like ‘Eugénie’ still better. It was an old taste of mine, and as you quoted a proverb a few moments ago, let me give you another as trite and as true,—