"At your age! Nonsense! That resolution won't last long."
"Very well; if I change—why, I'll let you know. But let us come to you, the man of the thousand and one passions! You ought to tell the story of them, as a supplement to the Thousand and One Nights."
"That may have been true once; but I've been getting rusty of late. It isn't virtue, I suppose; but I fancy that I am becoming hard to please."
"You will undoubtedly hasten to console Armantine, who may, perhaps, regret her former position in society, but surely doesn't regret her husband!"
"I, go to see Madame—Madame Montfort! Oh, no! no, indeed! Do you imagine that I still love her?"
"Of course! Weren't you mad over her?"
"Love is a form of madness that can be cured, and I am surprised that you think it possible for me to love that woman still—after the scene that you witnessed on the Champs-Élysées."
"What do you say? What scene?"
"Oh! my dear friend, let us not begin already to go back on the promise we made only a moment ago! You were on the Champs-Élysées, were you not, when an intoxicated man claimed acquaintance with me?"
"Yes; that is, I arrived just at the end. Armantine was running away; I saw that."