“Did you never notice any thing then?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“And suppose I were to tell you myself, that my poor Cesarine, alas! —loves you?”
M. de Tregars started. Had he been less occupied with the personage in the grand parlor, he would certainly not have allowed the conversation to drift in this channel. He understood his mistake; and, in an icy tone,
“Permit me, madame,” he said, “to believe that you are jesting.”
“And suppose it were the truth.”
“It would make me unhappy in the extreme.”
“Sir!”
“For the reason which I have already told you, that I love Mlle. Gilberte Favoral with the deepest and the purest love, and that for the past three years she has been, before God, my affianced bride.”
Something like a flash of anger passed over Mme. de Thaller’s eyes.