“Have you done, dear?” he asks, profiting by an instant in which she tosses her head after a pointed interrogation.
Then Caroline concludes thus: “I’ve had enough of the villa, and I’ll never set foot in it again. But I know what will happen: you’ll keep it, probably, and leave me in Paris. Well, at Paris, I can at least amuse myself, while you go with Madame de Fischtaminel to the woods. What is a Villa Adolphini where you get nauseated if you go six times round the lawn? where they’ve planted chair-legs and broom-sticks on the pretext of producing shade? It’s like a furnace: the walls are six inches thick! and my gentleman is absent seven hours a day! That’s what a country seat means!”
“Listen to me, Caroline.”
“I wouldn’t so much mind, if you would only confess what you did to-day. You don’t know me yet: come, tell me, I won’t scold you. I pardon you beforehand for all that you’ve done.”
Adolphe, who knows the consequences of a confession too well to make one to his wife, replies—“Well, I’ll tell you.”
“That’s a good fellow—I shall love you better.”
“I was three hours—”
“I was sure of it—at Madame de Fischtaminel’s!”
“No, at our notary’s, as he had got me a purchaser; but we could not come to terms: he wanted our villa furnished. When I left there, I went to Braschon’s, to see how much we owed him—”
“You made up this romance while I was talking to you! Look me in the face! I’ll go to see Braschon to-morrow.”