“I don’t know whether I ought to put this turquoise above or below my emerald.”
“Morbleu! Monsieur Raymond, my patience is exhausted; I am going to start without you.”
“Here I am! here I am, neighbor! Faith! I have put the turquoise above, no matter what happens.”
“That’s very fortunate.”
“Now, the coat—the hat—the gloves—and I’m all ready, you see.”
“Amazing! Let’s be off.”
“All right. Oh! I beg your pardon: I forgot a scented handkerchief.”
We left the room at last. When Raymond had closed his door, he discovered that he had not put his diamond ring on his little finger, so he went back to repair that omission. We went downstairs; but on the second landing, he failed to find his opera in his pocket, and went back for that. When we arrived in the courtyard, he remembered that he had not brought his favorite songs; and as he might be asked to sing, I must wait while he went to fetch them. I registered a vow never to travel again with Monsieur Raymond. At last, about a quarter past eight, we entered the cabriolet; then he discovered that he had not his eyeglass; but I was inexorable: I lashed the horse and we started. It was dark, so that Raymond could not read me his opera; but to make up to me for the deprivation, he proposed to tell me the plot. For more than an hour he prosed away about a Spanish princess and an Arabian prince, her lover, while I thought of Madame de Marsan, whom I was not at all sorry to see again, and whom I was surprised that I had neglected so long. When we reached Saint-Denis it was half-past nine; and I swore at Raymond, whose dilatoriness and absurd affectations would make us arrive at Madame de Marsan’s unconscionably late.
“Have we much farther to go?” I asked my neighbor, as we left Saint-Denis behind.
“Why, no; about three-fourths of a league only.—I was saying that my princess, having been rescued from the burning palace, swoons at the end of the second act.——”