"No, no! Edmond hasn't told me anything; I learned of your intrigue at Rouen; news of that sort is despatched at once by the railroads."
"I don't understand."
"That makes no difference; it's enough for you to know that your friend is at work for you, and that, knowing that you sighed for a cruel beauty, he said to himself:
"'Chamoureau must be made happy!'
"And I have manoeuvred so well and pulled the wires so skilfully with the fair Thélénie, that I have changed her views completely with respect to you! The result is that she gives you an assignation for nine o'clock this evening, on the Champs-Elysées. She will be in a coupé opposite the Jardin d'Hiver."
"It can't be possible! No, I know you, Freluchon—you're playing a joke on me!"
"I give you my word of honor—and you know that I don't give it lightly—that the charming person with whom you are in love will be in a coupé, opposite the Jardin d'Hiver, at nine o'clock this evening; and that the coachman will open the carriage door, if you open your left hand twice in front of him.—Do you believe me, now?"
"Dear Freluchon! embrace me!"
"I knew it would be so: he is the one who wants to embrace me now. Oh! these men! Someone has said: 'Woman changes oft, and foolish is the man,' et cetera; one might as fitly say: 'Man changes oft, and an ass is the man who trusts him!'—I am rewriting François I; but there have been those who have ventured to rewrite Racine; and frankly I think that he was a greater poet than François."
"In heaven's name, Freluchon, repeat what you just told me! This evening, at nine o'clock, I shall find Thélénie in a coupé on the Champs-Elysées?"