"You are mistaken."
"Poor Herminie! if she knew that she owed your visit solely to your desire to give me a shawl like one of hers! Ha! ha! ha! she would be frantic! What traitors men are, aren't they?"
"We are driven to it sometimes."
"Ha! ha! I like to think of going to see her with this shawl over my shoulders—she was so proud of hers! she will be struck dumb."
Madame Baldimer continued to laugh. Albert tried to give a more sentimental turn to the conversation, and, as a woman is not usually cruel when she laughs, he tried to take advantage of her merriment to renew certain manœuvres which would, he hoped, lead him to a complete victory. But his adversary, laughing all the while, defended herself with a dexterity which did not indicate that her heart was disposed to surrender.
Albert was beginning to consider that Madame Baldimer prolonged his torment a little too far, when the doorbell rang again.
"Who can have come so late to call upon you?" cried Albert; "it is almost twelve o'clock, and I thought that you would receive nobody but me to-night."
"Really, I don't expect anybody, unless possibly it is Count Dahlborne. That man pesters me with his attentions. He has probably heard of my return, and he loses no time——"
"But a man doesn't call at this time of night, unless he is on very good terms with a woman!"
"Ah! monsieur, that suspicion——"