“Who could it be, except Ferdinand?” replies Caroline.
“And is he keeping you waiting?”
“He is sick, poor fellow.”
A quizzical idea enters Adolphe’s head, and he replies, winking with one eye only: “I have just seen him.”
“Where?”
“In front of the Cafe de Paris, with some friends.”
“But why have you come back?” says Caroline, trying to conceal her murderous fury.
“Madame Foullepointe, who was tired of Charles, you said, has been with him at Ville d’Avray since yesterday.”
Adolphe sits down, saying: “This has happened very appropriately, for I’m as hungry as two bears.”
Caroline sits down, too, and looks at Adolphe stealthily: she weeps internally: but she very soon asks, in a tone of voice that she manages to render indifferent, “Who was Ferdinand with?”