“Baptiste will show you to your room, which is over this.”
“And where is mine, my dear, if you please?” queried the petite-maîtresse, as her husband went up to bed without bidding anyone good-night, because it was bad form.
“Yours, my dear?” rejoined Madame Destival; “why, with your husband; we have only one room to offer you.”
“What! can it be by any chance that you are going to make me sleep with him?”
“Why, of course.”
“Oh! that is absurd! Such a thing never occurred to me. I never sleep with Monsieur de la Thomassinière. I have my own suite, as you know.”
“For once, belle dame,” said Destival, with a sly expression, “our dear husband will not complain.”
“Mon Dieu! how amusing!” exclaimed Athalie, sulkily. Meanwhile, Madame Monin, who had succeeded at last in tucking up her dress and putting on her shawl, said to Madame Destival with a simper:
“For my part, I sleep with my husband, and I should just like to hear him mention a separate room! Ha! ha!”
“You know perfectly well, Bichette, that I have no desire to——”