"Madame is a good listener."
"Brave chevalier! but you will return to your estates?"
"Without doubt, madame, when I am weary of glory."
"Admirable man!" cried madame, with a silvery laugh. "What an enviable lady your wife is."
"Dear friend, I have no wife," complacently.
"Is that credible? A young and handsome man without a wife? Oh, chevalier!"
"My wife,"—with a frown—"my wife is gone long since."
"Alas! how sad. You must have been adored by her," breathed Madame Hesslein.
"Ah, pauvrette, yes. She wearied me with that grand passion of hers."
Madame's smiling face hardened into a stone-mask, but her eyes seemed to pulsate with smothered fire.