"What else?"
"He has called here several times to find out whether you had returned from the country."
"I know that; my concierge told me."
"Your absence has seemed very long to him—especially as you didn't tell him where you were going."
"Ah! he would have liked to know—and so would you, wouldn't you? But go on."
"Why, that's all."
"What! no new intrigues, no escapades, no card parties?"
"No, nothing—for the last few days we have been so virtuous!"
"No husbands deceived, no rivals to dread?"
"Nothing of the sort. There was a wager on the subject of a very pretty grisette, who is courted by a messenger; but Albert refused to go into it. Indeed, the thing isn't so easy as I thought at first. This very morning, I believed I had won my bet; my plans were carefully laid—the girl ought to have stepped into a very clever trap that I had laid for her. But, not at all; she avoided it! Those little grisettes sometimes have the presumption to insist on being virtuous. We should be very much to be pitied, if we hadn't the ladies of fashionable society to fall back on."