"Why so?"
"Because when this lady, who knows that you once adored her, and who must have seen that you love her still—when, I say, she asks you to come and see her, it means that she proposes to reward you for your constancy—to crown your passion. Pardieu! that's not hard to understand. Go to her party, my dear friend, and I'll stake my head that within six weeks the husband has rooms at the sign of the Stag or the Crescent, as long as you choose."
"Ah! what do you presume to imply? You imagine that Fanny is capable of betraying her husband, of forgetting her duty? No, no! she may be fickle, coquettish, if you please, but she will never be guilty. And I myself—oh! that is not my conception of love. A woman who shares her favors—who pretends to feel for one man the love which she really feels for another—oh! I should soon cease to love such a woman!"
Cherami shook his head, as he muttered:
"You are young, my dear Gustave; you are very young! You don't know the world as I do. You say that you still adore your Fanny, and that you wouldn't have her deceive her husband for you?"
"In the first place, she wouldn't do it!"
"I am strongly inclined to believe the contrary; but let us admit that you are right. I see but one means of making you happy, and that is to carry the young woman off. Do you want me to do that? I'll undertake it, if you do."
"No, my dear Arthur; I have never had such a thought. Fanny has all that she wants—she is happy; I shall be very careful to avoid disturbing her happiness; I have neither the right nor the desire to do so. But, as I feel that the sight of her intensifies my suffering, by reviving the passion which I am trying to extinguish; as I do not wish to expose myself—for some time, at least—to the chance of meeting her at the theatre or in society, why, I shall leave Paris, and travel once more. My uncle always has business in other countries, and he will not be sorry to employ me in that way again."
"That's a crazy idea of yours! So, if your love happens to hang on, that little woman will make you do the tour of the world?"
"Let us hope that time will cure me."