The carriage was going faster. It repassed the fortifications. Du Roy saw before him a reddish light in the sky like the glow of an immense forge, and heard a vast, confused, continuous rumor, made up of countless different sounds, the breath of Paris panting this summer night like an exhausted giant.
George reflected: "I should be very stupid to fret about it. Everyone for himself. Fortune favors the bold. Egotism is everything. Egotism as regards ambition and fortune is better than egotism as regards woman and love."
The Arc de Triomphe appeared at the entrance to the city on its two tall supports like a species of shapeless giant ready to start off and march down the broad avenue open before him. George and Madeleine found themselves once more in the stream of carriages bearing homeward and bedwards the same silent and interlaced couples. It seemed that the whole of humanity was passing by intoxicated with joy, pleasure, and happiness. The young wife, who had divined something of what was passing through her husband's mind, said, in her soft voice: "What are you thinking of, dear? You have not said a word for the last half hour."
He answered, sneeringly: "I was thinking of all these fools cuddling one another, and saying to myself that there is something else to do in life."
She murmured: "Yes, but it is nice sometimes."
"It is nice—when one has nothing better to do."
George's thoughts were still hard at it, stripping life of its poesy in a kind of spiteful anger. "I should be very foolish to trouble myself, to deprive myself of anything whatever, to worry as I have done for some time past." Forestier's image crossed his mind without causing any irritation. It seemed to him that they had just been reconciled, that they had become friends again. He wanted to cry out: "Good evening, old fellow."
Madeleine, to whom this silence was irksome, said: "Suppose we have an ice at Tortoni's before we go in."
He glanced at her sideways. Her fine profile was lit up by the bright light from the row of gas jets of a café. He thought, "She is pretty. Well, so much the better. Jack is as good as his master, my dear. But if ever they catch me worrying again about you, it will be hot at the North Pole." Then he replied aloud: "Certainly, my dear," and in order that she should not guess anything, he kissed her.
It seemed to the young wife that her husband's lips were frozen. He smiled, however, with his wonted smile, as he gave her his hand to alight in front of the café.