"Look you, my dear fellow, if ever you need my help in thrashing that scoundrel, you will afford me a very great pleasure, and I beg you not to forget me. I am a good-for-naught, I admit; I love all the women whose physique makes them worth the trouble of loving; I deceive them without scruple, because they pay me back in my own coin. In that respect, I fancy you are not unlike me. But to strike a woman, to inflict bodily suffering on a weak creature to whom we have owed the most delicious of joys!—oh! that is infamous, execrable! No infidelity can excuse such barbarous conduct!"
"You are quite right, Balloquet. Remember the two lines that have never grown old, despite their antiquity:
| "'Let shallow fops cry out, and fools lament; |
| The honest man, deceived, departs and says no word.' |
Au revoir, Balloquet! you will let me know about the poor girl, won't you?"
"To be sure! I will call on you and give you my address, when I have one."
XXVIII
A WORD OF ADVICE.—AN ASSIGNATION
It was cold, but the weather was superb. On leaving Balloquet, the whim seized me to take a turn about the garden of the Tuileries. I found many people in the garden. Fashionably attired ladies, well supplied with furs and warm cloaks, were seated along the main avenue, near the Terrasse des Feuillants. I glanced at them without stopping, but with the pleasure that one has in looking at flowers when one walks through a flower garden.
Suddenly I felt an involuntary thrill; I had recognized Madame Sordeville, but not until I was almost face to face with her. I was about to look the other way, when I saw another familiar face beside Armantine's: Madame Dauberny was sitting with her friend. They had seen me, and both had their eyes fixed on me. To pretend not to see them was impossible, and I raised my hat.
Frédérique barely moved her head, still looking at me, but maintaining the grave and almost frigid expression which she had adopted with me. It was not so with Madame Sordeville; she smiled upon me most affably, and said in her sweetest voice, as she pointed to a vacant chair by her side:
"Ah! is it you, Monsieur Rochebrune? I supposed that you had gone abroad, it is so long since we saw you. Pray sit down a moment with us. As we must depend upon chance for meeting you, you will surely give us a few moments."