Robineau nonchalantly took his seat beside two pretty women, and turning his ear toward them as if without design, caught some fragments of their conversation.
"Yes, my dear love, I judged him rightly. I was wise, as you see, to distrust his protestations of love, his ardent oaths, his profound sighs! And yet you cannot conceive with what an air of sincerity he told me that he proposed to be virtuous and faithful henceforth, and to love no one but me! It is ghastly to lie like that!"
Robineau turned his head so that he could see the speaker’s face; and he saw a lovely brunette, whose vivacious and intelligent features expressed at that moment a sentiment of vexation which she tried to conceal beneath a forced smile.
"My dear Jenny, I believe that you are a little annoyed because you put Alfred’s love to the proof."
"Annoyed! on the contrary, I am delighted. I did not believe in it for an instant; his reputation with respect to women is too well established for——"
At that point she lowered her voice and Robineau could not hear the rest of her sentence; but he thought:
"They are talking about Alfred—this is delightful!—She is a person he has been making love to, no doubt. Gad! how amusing it is!"
The other lady, who also was young and pretty, replied after a moment:
"I am inclined to think that I should have more confidence in his friend, Monsieur Edouard Beaumont; he has a less frivolous, less heedless air than Alfred; and he is very good-looking, is Edouard; he has a very pretty figure."
"Mon Dieu! my dear love, I’ll wager that he is no better than other men. It is safer to distrust those cold, reserved manners, too. Nobody is worse than such men, when it comes to deceiving us poor women. With a scapegrace who makes no pretence of concealing what he is, one knows what to expect at all events."