"I beg your pardon," said Monsieur Roland, ironically; "while you are making love in mid-air, you can't keep your wings at work; so you must fall. Look at the birds; they always light to do their billing and cooing."
"I anticipated that difficulty, my dear fellow; so, before I launch myself in the air, I always make myself fast to your balloon, which holds me up."
This witticism ranged all the laughers on Montricourt's side, and even Monsieur Roland decided to admit defeat.
It was now the turn of Monsieur Rouffignard, the corpulent bon vivant who sat next to me.
"My story won't be long," he said; "I rush my love affairs through on time; I don't like to have things drag along. I was in love with a woman who wasn't handsome, but had a fine figure; and I'm a great fellow for shape; I tell you, I set store by shape! To speak without periphrasis, I prefer what's underneath to what's outside. Well! I was making love to a lady who had little to boast of in the way of features; but such a superb bust! such well-rounded hips! I said to myself: 'If all that's only as firm and hard as a plum pudding, it will be all right; for, after all, one can't expect to find marble unless he goes to a statue.'—I would have been glad to have a chance to appraise, by means of a slight caress, more or less innocent, the real value of what I admired, but my inamorata didn't understand that sort of play; as soon as I made a motion to touch her, she'd shriek and wriggle and scratch. 'I shall never triumph over such untamed virtue as this,' I said to myself. But one fine day—that is to say, one evening, she agreed to meet me. She gave me leave to call between ten and eleven. I took good care to be prompt. Madame lived alone. She opened the door herself, and admitted me; but I was surprised to find that she had no light. I presumed that it was simply excess of modesty, and that defeat in the dark would be less trying to her; I had the more reason to think so, because she offered only a slight resistance. I began to grow audacious, but fancy my disappointment; instead of what I had hoped to find, I found nothing but cliquettes—that is to say, bones, of different degrees of sharpness. My audacity gave place to alarm; I recalled the romance of the Monk, and the story of La Nonne Sanglante; I began to be afraid that I was alone with a skeleton. But I had in my pocket one of those devices which we smokers use to obtain a light. I lighted it, without warning my fair; she shrieked when she saw the flame, and I did the same when I found that I was tête-à-tête with a beanpole. All I had admired was false. I alleged a sudden indisposition, and fled. Since then, whenever that lady meets me, she glares at me as if she would strike me dead. I am very sorry for her, but one shouldn't pretend to be a millionaire when one doesn't own a single foot of ground."
It was my turn to relate my adventures. I have had amusing ones and sad ones; but, presuming that the sentimental sort would be misplaced on that occasion, I determined on this:
"The scene is laid in the country, messieurs, in a delightful region about five leagues from Paris. I had gone there to pass a fortnight with a friend of mine who has a house in that neighborhood; he had consumption, and was living on milk exclusively; so I leave you to guess whether the establishment was a lively one. However, one should be willing sometimes to make sacrifices to friendship. And then, too, there was a house near by, occupied by several tenants, among them a charming young widow whom I had met in society in Paris. She was a blonde, with tender blue eyes and a languishing smile, and an expert coquette, I assure you! You will say that all women are; but there are gradations. I renewed my acquaintance with her; in the country, as you have lots of time to yourself, love does its work much more quickly than in town; and then, the delicious shade, the verdure, the charming retired nooks where you can hear nothing but the twittering of birds—are not all these made to incline one's heart to sentiment, to invite to love? A welcome invitation, which it is so pleasant to hear! In a word, I made such progress with my lovely widow, that nothing remained but to obtain a tête-à-tête. That, however, was not so easy as you may think. The house where my blonde lived was occupied by a lot of inquisitive, gossiping, evil-tongued people, whose greatest delight was to busy themselves about what others were doing. That is the principal occupation of fools in the country; they get up in the morning to spy on their neighbors, and do not go to bed happy if they have not done or said some spiteful thing during the day. My attentions to the pretty widow had been remarked; so they instantly passed the word around to watch us, to dog our steps; she and I could not move, without the whole province knowing it. All those bourgeois and clowns of the pumpkin family were worthy to be police-men in Paris; and I thought seriously of recommending them to monsieur le préfet.
"The result was that we had to act with great secrecy. The house where my widow lived had a large garden. All gardens have a small gate; and each tenant was supplied with a key to the little gate of the garden in question, which opened into a lovely meadow. Several times, when talking with my inamorata in the evening, I had urged her to give me her key, so that I could get into the garden. By waiting until midnight, I was certain to avoid meeting any of her fellow boarders, for all of them went to bed at ten o'clock, as a rule. My constant refrain was: 'Let me have the key; or else let me in at midnight.'
"At last, one evening when we had met at a neighbor's, as we left the house my blonde came to me, took my hand, and whispered in my ear:
"'Come to-night.'