“Why, I should think that you might guess. Don’t you know, madame, that I have just had a duel—that is to say, I have been a second in a duel—in fact, I have had a duel all the same——”
“Oh, yes! to be sure, it was this morning. Well?”
“Well, we fought with pistols, and we fired first; that was our right. But we missed our adversary; thereupon he agreed not to fire if we would admit that we did wrong to speak ill of his fiancée and her friend; and we admitted it.”
“Cowards! I recognize you there.”
“That is to say, it was not I, it was Luminot, who——”
“All right! I know enough! leave me.”
And Thélénie turned on her heel, leaving Chamoureau alone.
“That woman is never satisfied,” he said to himself; “for heaven’s sake, was she anxious for the death of one of us? O Eléonore! you never longed for anybody’s death!—All the same, I won’t say anything to my wife about the appointment those men made to meet us here at five o’clock. She would be capable of giving orders not to let them in. And those men, especially the owner of the dog, didn’t seem inclined to joke. He threatened us with a duel to the death; so that I am determined that he shall be satisfied; and if madame doesn’t like it, why, fichtre! I’ll show my teeth!”
The day seemed endless to Thélénie, who longed for six o’clock to come. She shut herself up in her bedroom, and kept her eyes fixed upon a clock, waiting impatiently for the moment when she was to see Croque.
But, a few minutes before five, a servant informed her that several callers had arrived, and that her husband desired her to come down to the salon.