"Fifine, if you knew how you hurt me, you would not make such confessions—to me, who have always kept you in my heart!"
"Bah! don’t talk such nonsense! But I am very curious to know all you have been doing these three years. Give me your arm; can you do it without fear of consequences?"
"Yes, of course I can."
"Well! let us walk up and down the passage a while—I have until four o’clock—and tell me about it."
Robineau offered Fifine his arm with a sigh which made the milliner laugh; then he began his narrative.
"After we had our falling-out, I left Paris for the château I had bought——"
"You bought a château! Where, then?"
"In Auvergne."
"I should have preferred one at Belleville; it’s livelier there, specially now that they’ve got a pretty theatre like the one at the Rochechouart Barrier."
"Yes, I discovered myself that I should have done better to buy nothing more than a pretty country house.—However, I started for Auvergne; I took Alfred de Marcey and Edouard with me."