“I know,—I know,” he said, laughing, and then, turning to a more serious tone, he added, “Do not think me cynical. I am not. There exist in this world women that are worthy to be loved, in reverence. One day I shall meet a young girl whom I can respect and adore as I do the ideal of womanhood that is in my mother and sister, but when I take a wife I shall never bring her to this poisoned atmosphere. David, if you were a man of the world, if you could keep to the surface of things, I should shrug my shoulder, but you can not.” He gripped my arm tightly. “You are not even a man. Confess that it is only your vanity that holds you, that at bottom you hate this entanglement that humiliates you and corrupts you.”
“It is a nightmare,” I said gloomily.
“Well, then?”
“In her way,” I said, “she loves me.”
He stopped and looked at me in amazement at my innocence. I did not understand his look then. I do, now. He started to speak. I can imagine what was on the tip of his tongue but, beyond a certain point his notion of chivalry would not permit him to go.
“In that case, my dear David, I have nothing more to say. Your appetite, at least, is not affected?”
“Not in the least.”
“Then a very good solution to all problems is a certain Canard au vin blanc and gooseberries, that Carlo will cook for us with his own hands!”
We had ascended the old Rue de Tournon, the Senate rising ahead of us. We entered the restaurant, and the first person I saw was Madame de Tinquerville, dining en tête-à-tête with a man unknown to me.
She looked up, saw me, and glanced down again, quickly. We passed into the inner room and took a table. Something exploded in my brain.