“Well! what if that were the fact? As I have not seen her for a long time——”
“You have ceased to see her, and yet she has the assurance to talk with you so freely, holding your hand and looking into the whites of your eyes! And she laughed in my face when she went away. Ah! she has a most impudent manner! But I shall know her again. I had plenty of time to look at her, for you didn’t see me, you were so engrossed with that woman! You promised her something, for she said to you: ‘Don’t forget what you have just promised me.’—Is that so, monsieur?”
“Great heaven! it is very possible, madame. I have no very clear idea what she said to me, for I wanted but one thing, and that was to get rid of her; for I suspected that if you saw me talking with her, it would put a lot of crazy ideas into your head.”
“Crazy ideas! you expect me to see you with a woman like that, and not to object to it! Ah! I am suffocating! I cannot stand any more!”
She put her handkerchief to her eyes. I took her hand and led her away, for I had no desire to make a spectacle of myself again on the Terrasse des Feuillants. We walked along the Champs-Elysées for some time, without speaking. I stopped in front of a restaurant and started to go in.
“What is this place?”
“A restaurant, where we are to dine.”
“It is no use, I am not hungry; I want to go home.”
“You know very well that everything in our apartment is packed up, and that we can’t dine there. Really, Eugénie, you are making yourself miserable for no reason at all. How can you think that if I had relations with that woman, I would be with her where I knew that you were coming?”
“What did you promise her?”