“Why yes, my dear.”
“Well then, tell me truly did you never feel tempted to—to—to deceive that imbecile Souris?”
Mme. Leuillet said: “Oh!” pretending to be shocked and hid her face again on her husband's shoulder. But he saw that she was laughing.
“Come now, own up,” he persisted. “He looked like a ninny, that creature! It would be funny, so funny! Good old Souris! Come, come, dearie, you do not mind telling me, me, of all people.”
He insisted on the “me” thinking that if she had wished to deceive Souris she would have chosen him, and he was trembling in anticipation of her avowal, sure that if she had not been a virtuous woman she would have encouraged his own attentions.
But she did not answer, laughing still, as at the recollection of something exceedingly comical.
Leuillet, in his turn began to laugh, thinking he might have been the lucky man, and he muttered amid his mirth: “That poor Souris, that poor Souris, oh, yes, he looked like a fool!”
Mme. Leuillet was almost in spasms of laughter.
“Come, confess, be frank. You know I will not mind.”
Then she stammered out, almost choking with laughter: “Yes, yes.”