“In any case,” returned Madame de l’Estorade, emphasizing the word, “she does not hold by him.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Madame de Camps; “to avoid a man is often the greatest proof of love.”
Madame de l’Estorade looked at her friend with a vexed air, and a slight tinge of color came into her cheeks. But no one took notice of it, for at this moment the servant threw open the door and announced dinner.
After dinner, the theatre was proposed; that is one of the amusements that Parisians miss the most in the provinces. Monsieur Octave de Camps, coming from his “villanous iron-works,” as Madame de l’Estorade called them, had arrived in Paris eager for this pleasure, which his wife, more serious and sober, did not enjoy to the same extent. Therefore, when Monsieur de Camps proposed going to the Porte-Saint-Martin to see a fairy piece then much in vogue, Madame Octave replied:—
“Neither Madame de l’Estorade nor I have the least desire to go out this evening; we are very tired with our expedition. Take Rene and Nais; they will enjoy the fairies far more than we.”
The two children awaited in deep anxiety the permission which Madame de l’Estorade finally granted; and a few moments later the two friends, left to themselves, prepared for an evening of comfortable talk.
“I am not at home to any one,” said Madame de l’Estorade to Lucas, as soon as her family had departed.
“Now that we are alone,” said Madame de Camps, “I shall proceed to blows; I have not travelled two hundred miles to wrap up in cotton-wool the truth I have come to tell you.”
“Ready to hear it,” said Madame de l’Estorade, laughing.
“Your last letter, my dear, simply frightened me.”