“Certainly,” I replied.
“However pleasant the adventure has been,” he went on with an air of mystery, “you must be off! I will let Madame de T——- understand that her secret will be well kept.”
“On that point, my friend, she perhaps counts more on me than on you; for you see her sleep is not disturbed by the matter.”
“Oh! I quite agree that there is no one like you for putting a woman to sleep.”
“Yes, and a husband too, and if necessary a lover, my dear friend.”
At last Monsieur de T——- was admitted to his wife’s apartment, and there we were all summoned.
“I trembled,” said Madame de T——- to me, “for fear you would go before I awoke, and I thank you for saving me the annoyance which that would have caused me.”
“Madame,” I said, and she must have perceived the feeling that was in my tones—“I come to say good-bye.”
She looked at me and at the marquis with an air of disquietude; but the self-satisfied, knowing look of her lover reassured her. She laughed in her sleeve with me as if she would console me as well as she could, without lowering herself in my eyes.
“He has played his part well,” the marquis said to her in a low voice, pointing to me, “and my gratitude—”