"Till to-morrow!"
"I'll try to remember all I had to say to you."
The lovers parted, regretting that they had not time to talk more. It is always so while love lasts; for even if they have nothing more to say, they still have the pleasure of looking at each other.
XX
TWO RIVALS
The clock had just struck eleven. Madame Baldimer, dressed with even more coquetry than usual, had been waiting a long while in her boudoir; impatience, uneasiness, and anger gleamed in her eyes. Again and again she rose, paced the floor excitedly, stopped to listen for the doorbell, then looked at her clock. For the third time she pulled a bellrope, and her maid appeared.
"Has no one come, Rosa?"
"No, madame."
"It is inconceivable! I wrote him to come at ten, and now it is eleven! He is always so eager, so prompt! I cannot understand it. If he had triumphed, I could conceive of his failing to keep an appointment; but so long as a man is not our conqueror, he is our slave. Can it be that Albert is not like other men?"
"Is it Monsieur Albert Vermoncey whom madame expects this evening?"
"To be sure."