“I have just called Asmé to congratulate him on the little timbales and to make an observation about the foie gras,” the Baron replied. “I shall not tell you what it was, but you shall judge from experience. He is, as I have always said, what I call a real chef. But he is still young.”
“He will shape better,” said Bonnivet as he threw me a meaning look, “with a master like you.”
“He is the seventh who has passed through my hands,” Deforges said with a shrug of the shoulders and in the most serious tones, “not one more, since I have known what eating really is. The seventh, do you hear? Then I pass them on to you and you spoil them by your praise. Chefs are like other artists. They are not proof against the compliments of the ignorant.”
I had reckoned on going for a short time from the smoking-room to the drawing-room and, after a short period of polite and general conversation there, on leaving in the English fashion, taking advantage of the return of the smokers or the arrival of fresh guests to do so. When I reached the drawing-room there were only the two ladies who had dined and Senneterre there. Such small parties being unfavourable to private conversation, I had reason to hope that Madam de Bonnivet would not have the opportunity of cornering and confessing me. I little knew this capricious and authoritative woman who was also well acquainted with her husband’s ways. She had realized that it would not do for her to talk to me in Bonnivet’s presence. Directly I appeared she rose from the couch where she was sitting by Madam Éthorel’s side facing Madam Mosé, with Senneterre on a low chair at her feet holding her fan. She came towards me and led the way into a second drawing-room which opened out of the first, where she sat down upon a couch near me.
“We can talk more quietly here,” she began. Then she sharply said: “Is your portrait of Mademoiselle Favier far advanced?” She had a way of questioning which betrayed the despotism of the rich and pretty woman who regards the person to whom she is talking in the light of a servant to amuse or inform her. Each time I come across this unconscious insolence in a fashionable doll an irresistible desire seizes me to give her a disagreeable answer. Jacques had without doubt speculated upon this trait of my character in making me play the part of exciter, which, however, I refused with such loyal energy to do.
“The portrait of Mademoiselle Favier? Why, I have not even begun it,” I replied.
“Ah!” she said with a nasty smile, “has Molan changed his mind and forbidden it? You are in love with the pretty little woman, M. la Croix, confess it?”
“In love with her?” I replied. “Not the least bit in the world.”
“It looked like it the other day,” she said, “and Jacques Molan was, in fact, a little bit jealous of you.”
“All lovers are more or less jealous,” I interposed, and yielding to the desire I felt to hurt her, I added: “He is very wrong; Camille Favier loves him with all her heart, and she has a big heart.”