"Whom, madame?"
My pretty partner stared at me in amazement as she exclaimed:
"What do you say? whom? Why, his wife, our dear Anna!"
So Monsieur Dablémar was the bridegroom; there was no longer any doubt.
"Oh! I beg your pardon, madame," I hastily replied. "I meant to say that she will be happy, madame, very happy. At least, that is my honest opinion."
"I love to think that you are not mistaken. I knew Anna at boarding school; I know that she has an excellent disposition; and a husband must needs be very uncongenial to induce her ever to complain of her lot. But still, to speak frankly, the other one was prettier."
Once more I was beyond my depth. Who was this other one of whom she was speaking? I turned and looked in another direction; but my partner stuck to the point.
"And yet," she continued, "they say that he did not love her, that he neglected her sadly. You must have known her, monsieur, being a friend of Monsieur Dablémar?"
"Known whom, madame?"
This time my partner looked at me in a very singular way; I was convinced that she believed that she had fallen in with a lunatic. She simply said, with a smile: