“That’s all right, monsieur; that’s not what I refer to. Go to bed.”
Chamoureau drew himself up, assumed a dignified air, and replied:
“You tell me to go to bed. But allow me, madame, to remind you, that since we have occupied this house, where you consigned me to an apartment a long way from yours, you have not once allowed me to enter your apartment at night! Sometimes it’s one excuse, sometimes another; you always have a pretext for refusing to admit me.—But it seems to me, madame, that I have some rights—some glorious rights in fact! Am I your husband, or am I not? ‘That is the question,’ as the English would say.”
“Oh! how you bore me, monsieur!”
“Madame, I didn’t bring you twenty-two thousand five hundred francs a year for the privilege of sleeping alone. Deuce take it! I married for another purpose—otherwise it wasn’t worth while for me to marry!—Why——”
“Have you finished, monsieur?”
“Madame, you made me dance seventeen times with different women. Some of them were very ugly. I do whatever you want me to; and it seems to me that you, in your turn——”
“How dare you talk to me of such matters, monsieur, when you have a duel on hand for to-morrow—a serious duel? If Monsieur Luminot should fall, it would be your duty, as his second, to avenge him.”
The memory of the duel instantly put to flight the amorous thoughts which were agitating Chamoureau. He turned pale and stammered:
“I don’t know, madame, why you mixed me up in that affair, which did not concern me at all. There was your old friend, Baron von Schtapelmerg—a man who has fought against the Turks; he would have asked nothing better than to be Monsieur Luminot’s second. However, two seconds are required; I will see the baron to-morrow, and——”