"Passionately?"
"No."
At this word, which I uttered very clearly and with a steady look, Mlle. Hélouin flung the orange-blossom away and dropped my arm. Since this unlucky hour I have been treated with a contempt I do not deserve, and I should have been convinced that friendship between man and woman is a mere illusion, if I had not had on the following day something like an antithesis to this adventure.
I had gone to spend the evening at the château, and as the two or three families who had been staying there for the last fortnight had left in the morning, I met only the habitués—the curé, the tax-collector, Dr. Desmarets, and General de Saint-Cast and his wife, who, like the doctor, lived at the neighbouring little town.
When I came in, Mme. de Saint-Cast, who had apparently brought her husband a handsome fortune, was in close conversation with Mme. Aubry. As usual, these ladies were in perfect agreement. In language in which distinction of form rivalled elevation of thought, they, like two shepherds in an eclogue, alternately lauded the incomparable charms of wealth.
"You are perfectly right, madame," said Mme. Aubry. "There is only one thing in the world worth having, and that is money. When I had money I utterly despised every one who had not, and now I think it quite natural for people to despise me, and I don't complain if they do."
"No one despises you on that account, madame," replied Mme. de Saint-Cast, "most certainly not; but all the same there's a very great difference between poverty and riches, I must confess, as the general knows well enough. Why, he had absolutely nothing when I married him—except his sword—and one doesn't get fat on a sword, does one, madame?"
"No, no, indeed, madame!" exclaimed Mme. Aubry, delighted with this bold metaphor. "Honour and glory are all very well in novels, but a nice carriage is much better in practice, isn't it, madame?"
"Of course it is, madame; and that's just what I was saying to the general this morning as we came here. Isn't it, general?"
"Eh, what?" growled the general, who was playing cards in a corner with the old corsair.