“Well, go on: this young woman?”
“As I was saying, he assured himself with his glass that she was young, pretty, well built, and not faded. Oh! his glass is invaluable for that!”
“But the lover?”
“The lover doesn’t live with her. He goes very often to see her; but he doesn’t sit at the window, naturally; so that Grandmaison has only caught a glimpse of him, for she is careful to leave the window as soon as the young man arrives.”
“Well?”
“Well, everything is going as smoothly as possible. Grandmaison took the little one to a closed box at the Opéra night before last, the lover being in the country.”
At that point, I could no longer control myself, and, entirely unconscious of what I was doing, I struck the table between my neighbor and myself such a violent blow that the cup of chocolate bounded up into his face as he leaned over the table to speak to me. The bulk of the liquid deluged Raymond’s waistcoat and shirt frill. He jumped back, startled by the gesture that had escaped me. Ashamed of having allowed my trouble, my wrath, my frenzy, to appear, I tried to recover myself; I composed my features and apologized. Raymond, uncertain whether he could safely approach me, asked for a glass of water to clean his face.
“Pardon! a thousand pardons! my dear Raymond, I don’t know what caught me then.—You were saying that, the day before yesterday——”
“You gave me a terrible fright. Are you subject to nervous spasms?”