"Oh, dear! there you go again, with your evil thoughts! Is it because I have been to see Juliette that you are so cross?"
"Cross? I am not cross!"
"As if I didn't know you! as if I couldn't read in your eyes! You promised me absolute confidence."
"It seems to me that I am proving my confidence in you at this moment."
"By making wry faces because you didn't find me when you came this morning! Come, my friend, let us reason a little; you should be logical: if I don't love you, what reason have I for pretending to, for feigning sentiments which I do not feel—for deceiving you, in a word? Come—answer me!"
Instead of answering, Adhémar rose and paced the floor, sat down at the piano, ran his fingers over the keys, began waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas; then ran to Nathalie and kissed her, saying:
"Forgive me, dear girl; I slept badly last night; I have a little headache; that is why you found me so sulky."
Nathalie pretended to believe him, and harmony was reëstablished, in appearance at least; for in the bottom of his heart Adhémar was tormented by doubt; he thought of those frequent goings-out in the morning, ostensibly to see Juliette, and said to himself:
"She used not to go out so often—or, if she did, she told me herself when she intended to go."
Several days passed; Adhémar constantly changed the hour of his visits; but Madame Dermont was always at home, and he began to feel a little more at ease. But, impelled by that jealousy which in him was the inevitable concomitant of genuine love, it happened more than once that, after he had left Nathalie, he prowled about the street a long while, or stood under a neighboring porte cochère, to see if she did not go out; but he had his trouble for his pains, to his great contentment.