"Madame was speaking to me," he then said, "about her health."
Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand anxieties; his wife's palpitations of the heart were beginning again. Then Rodolphe asked if riding would not be good.
"Certainly! excellent! just the thing! There's an idea! You ought to follow it up."
And as she objected that she had no horse, Monsieur Rodolphe offered one. She refused his offer; he did not insist. Then to explain his visit he said that his ploughman, the man of the blood-letting, still suffered from giddiness.
"I'll call round," said Bovary.
"No, no! I'll send him to you; we'll come; that will be more convenient for you."
"Ah! very good! I thank you."
And as soon as they were alone, "Why don't you accept Monsieur Boulanger's kind offer?"
She assumed a sulky air, invented a thousand excuses, and finally declared that perhaps it would look odd.
"Well, what the deuce do I care for that?" said Charles, making a pirouette. "Health before everything! You are wrong."