"Why not, I should like to know? You seem to be surprised at everything!"
"But after all that happened between you before you were married——"
"All what? Monsieur Gustave was in love with me. Ah! there are many others who are in love with me to-day—yes, and who pay court to me, too. But that won't keep them from coming to dance at our ball—quite the contrary; and they have engaged me beforehand for I don't know how many contra-dances. But I shall take only those whom I like. I would have done as much for Gustave; or, rather, I would have given him the preference—I would have let him have more dances."
"But don't you see that Gustave still loves you? that he can't accustom himself to seeing you as another man's wife, and that it would be impossible for him to meet your husband?"
"Do you think that that young man still loves me so much as that?"
"To be sure; he was just telling me so himself when you came."
"Ah! the poor boy! I am sorry for him, but I thought he had grown reasonable! A constant lover! Why, the fellow is a perfect phœnix!"
"A phœnix that you would have none of!"
"I don't repent. My husband is not a phœnix in love, I admit. At first, he adored me; then, it suddenly passed away. But I wasn't silly enough to groan over it. He has continued to lavish on me all the pleasures and amusements that wealth can procure. What more could I ask? I consider myself the luckiest woman in Paris. Whereas with that poor Gustave—that phœnix of constancy!—I should have vegetated; I should have gone to the play on Sunday, as a treat!"
"Monsieur Gustave is already in a much better position. His uncle is so well satisfied with him that he gives him ten thousand francs a year now."