“Very well, I believe you. Carlo!” The head waiter came hastily to us.
“Carlo. A table opposite M. Fornesco,—the one that is engaged.”
“M. le Comte—”
“Carlo—this is an exception. I must have it.”
His eye met the head waiter’s, who hesitated and bowed. We rose and, sauntering into the main dining room, seated ourselves two tables away from Madame de Tinquerville, in an angle that was partitioned off from the rest of the room. When, with an appearance of casualness, I turned to watch her, I saw in her eyes a look of abject terror. Every such woman believes more or less in the dramatics of Camille and, from that moment to the end, I know Letty awaited the public scene that would strip her sacred reputation and leave her the butt of Paris gossip. As for myself, I was at that moment capable of the greatest cruelty without the turning of a hair: I found resources of self-control in me that astounded me. I laughed, discussed affairs of the day whimsically, and swapped anecdotes, as though out on a collegian’s holiday. Madame de Tinquerville watched me from the corner of her eye, never losing me from her gaze, listening, waiting—
Towards the end of the dinner, De Saint Omer said to me:
“You know the anecdote on Gommecourt,—no? Quite amusing. I’ll tell it to you. Besides,—there is a moral.”
“A moral?” I said, feeling that the comedy was about to begin.
“Gommecourt was a young parvenu of the time of the Regence who had become involved in an affair with a celebrated actress of those days. He was avaricious, vain, prudent, and not without a certain wit, as you shall see.”
The conversation at Madame de Tinquerville’s table had stopped. De Saint Omer’s voice could be heard distinctly, and I knew that Letty was listening breathlessly.