“Almost always!”
“Eugénie, I have told you the truth; you would do very wrong to believe anything else.”
“But you seem to be so infatuated with this little Marguerite. You say that she is so pretty.”
“In the first place, I did not say that she was pretty. But even if she were, that isn’t what I admired in her; it was her love, her deep affection for her lover.”
“Oh, yes! that was what led you up to the eaves!”
“Yes, it was. Why do you think ill of a person whom you do not know?”
“Oh! you did so many things when you were a bachelor! You had so many mistresses!”
“A very good reason why I did not need to turn to somebody’s else, who would not have listened to me if I had.”
“You may very well have known Mademoiselle Marguerite before she knew her Monsieur Ernest, as you were her neighbor.”
“If I had dreamed that you would imagine all this, I would not have mentioned Ernest or his wife.”