“Madame de Valdieri keeps looking at me with that contemptuous expression; I prefer to go.”
So Chérubin disappeared from the salons and went home, thinking exclusively of Madame Célival, and engrossed by the appointment she had made with him for the next day.
XXII
THE PLUMS
One wakes early when one is in love and has an assignation with the object of one’s love. It is not absolutely certain that Chérubin loved Madame Célival; indeed, it is probable that he felt for all his conquests only those fleeting desires which all young men feel in the presence of a pretty woman; a form of disease with which we often continue to be afflicted when we have attained the age of maturity, and of which it is very pleasant to be unable to cure oneself as one grows old. But Chérubin was still too inexperienced to be able to draw distinctions in his sensations; he believed himself to be passionately in love with Madame Célival.
He was no sooner awake than he rang. Jasmin, despite his years, was always one of the first to answer his master’s bell; but Chérubin did not desire his services again to assist him to dress.
“You made a fine mess of it yesterday, Jasmin,” he said.
“What did I do, monsieur?” asked the old servant, dismayed by Chérubin’s irritated manner.
“Why, you drenched me with perfumery, Jasmin; you put it on all my clothes; I was a regular walking scent-bag.”
“Did not monsieur smell good?”
“Why, yes! I smelt too good—that is to say, too strong! In fact, I went to people’s heads. Nervous ladies can’t endure that sort of thing, and you are responsible for a lady’s fainting away. It was exceedingly unpleasant.”