“Devoted to his wife, eh?”
“Yes. I have never seen her, but I hear she is a charming creature, and Victor is truly attached to her.”
“This looks like it, doesn’t it?” cried Léontine, pointing to the supper table.
“I don’t see that it doesn’t look like it. I happen to know that de Meneval has had a good deal to trouble him lately. He got some money from an unexpected source some days ago, and I advised him to give a little supper—it’s dull out here, you know——”
“You advised him to give a little supper! You—the Pink of Military Propriety!”
“Yes, why not?”
“And how about his wife?”
“Oh,” replied the Major, with easy confidence, “she would probably make an awful row if she knew it—but she’ll never know it. De Meneval has coached me—I know exactly what to tell Léontine when I meet her—it so happens that I have not met her yet. But I hear she is a charming young woman.”
“She will be twice as charming to you when she finds that you have been leading her husband off into giving suppers to—to—little devils like me for example,” said Léontine, very solemnly.
“Oh, de Meneval and I have mapped out our campaign. We have a large and trusty assortment of lies, expressly for Léontine’s consumption, and she will swallow every one of them.”