All that he learned added to Edouard’s newly-born passion. What joy to carry off the palm from so many rivals,—and Madame de Géran had looked at him and treated him in such a way as to justify him in forming hopes. The fact was that she had turned his head; and Dufresne, who had no difficulty in reading the weak and fickle Murville’s heart, seized the opportunity to broach the subject of his interview with Adeline, taking pains to represent the thing as a mere pleasantry, which he did not expect would be so severely reprehended.
“Yes, yes, I know,” said Edouard; “my wife spoke to me about it this morning.”
“Ah! she told you——”
“That you were a monster, a villain, a false friend!”
“Indeed!”
“And much more too! for I warn you that she is furiously angry with you. But never fear—I will pacify her; she will see that she took the thing in the wrong way when she learns that you mentioned it first.”
“I am truly sorry that I amused myself by—But after all, your wife is a very strange woman!”
“It’s her mother, Madame Germeuil, who has stuffed her head with romantic ideas.”
“Certainly no one would ever think that she was educated in Paris.”
“Oh! she will have to form herself in good society. Would you believe that she expressed a purpose not to receive you again?”