"Oh! madame certainly does not need flowers to make her beautiful. When one has such lovely hair as madame's, it is the loveliest of head-dresses; but as madame sometimes wears a pomegranate flower or a poppy——"
"I tell you that I want nothing more; leave me."
The maid left the room, and the fair Thélénie paced the floor a few moments, then paused in front of a mirror, talking to herself all the while.
"It was to please him that I wore a pomegranate flower in my hair; he liked it; he said that the deep color of the flower blended beautifully with my glossy hair. He called me his lovely Andalusian then; and now he no longer loves me. Have I changed? Why, no, no; I am just as I was three months ago, when I captivated him. As if one had changed in three months, when one has not been sick! Oh, no!—But if this goes on, I shall have changed in three months more: anger, jealousy and ennui will have made ravages on my face. I shall have grown old and he will be the cause of it.—False Edmond! Oh! what a fool I am to think of him still! conceited little fop, who never loved me! And I, I who had never before known a deep-rooted sentiment, who laughed in my sleeve at all the men who sighed at my feet—by what fatality did I allow myself to be bewitched by that little fellow?—After all, that love could never have led to anything; on the contrary, it was a disadvantage to me; it kept men away from me who might have made my fortune; and I want to be rich!—I have no desire to imitate those women who, after dazzling Paris by their magnificence and their follies, die at the hospital or become box-openers at a second-class theatre.—I am in a position now to be at ease in my mind concerning the future; I have got together about ten thousand francs a year. That is something, but it isn't enough; I can't have a carriage and a handsome place in the country on ten thousand francs, and I want those things. Edmond isn't rich; he never gave me anything; indeed, I believe it was that that made me love him! Mon Dieu! what a fool I am! Of course I no longer love him, but that is an additional reason for wanting to be revenged on him. He left me first; that is one of those affronts which I never forgive."
The door-bell rang; a moment later the maid appeared.
"A gentleman wishes to see madame."
"Did he give his name?"
"Monsieur Cha—Chamoureau."
"Very well; show him in."
Chamoureau was in full dress; he had bought a new coat and trousers. The coat was much too small in the armholes; the trousers were uncomfortably tight around the waist and had straps under the feet; but our widower was not sorry to have a genteel figure and to conceal a part of his embonpoint. Anyhow, he could find nothing better at the ready-made clothes shop the day before. A snow-white cravat and waistcoat completed the agent's resemblance to a bridegroom; he lacked only the white gloves, which were replaced by a pair of light yellow ones.