They both looked at him approvingly, holding that he spoke rightly and justly, confessing by their friendly silence that their flexible morality as Parisians would not have held out long before the certainty of secrecy. And Forestier, leaning back in his place on the divan, one leg bent under him, and his napkin thrust into his waistcoat, suddenly said with the satisfied laugh of a skeptic: "The deuce! yes, they would all go in for it if they were certain of silence. Poor husbands!"
And they began to talk of love. Without admitting it to be eternal, Duroy understood it as lasting, creating a bond, a tender friendship, a confidence. The union of the senses was only a seal to the union of hearts. But he was angry at the outrageous jealousies, melodramatic scenes, and unpleasantness which almost always accompany ruptures.
When he ceased speaking, Madame de Marelle replied: "Yes, it is the only pleasant thing in life, and we often spoil it by preposterous unreasonableness."
Madame Forestier, who was toying with her knife, added: "Yes—yes—it is pleasant to be loved."
And she seemed to be carrying her dream further, to be thinking things that she dared not give words to.
As the first entreé was slow in coming, they sipped from time to time a mouthful of champagne, and nibbled bits of crust. And the idea of love, entering into them, slowly intoxicated their souls, as the bright wine, rolling drop by drop down their throats, fired their blood and perturbed their minds.
The waiter brought in some lamb cutlets, delicate and tender, upon a thick bed of asparagus tips.
"Ah! this is good," exclaimed Forestier; and they ate slowly, savoring the delicate meat and vegetables as smooth as cream.
Duroy resumed: "For my part, when I love a woman everything else in the world disappears." He said this in a tone of conviction.
Madame Forestier murmured, with her let-me-alone air: