The first idea that came to my mind was that he believed himself to be threatened by some misfortune of the sort of which Montaigne and Madame de Sévigné speak:
“The sway of love is always full of tragic episodes,” etc.
“I supposed that accidents of that sort happened only to men of intellect,” I said to myself.—“You have drunk too much Collioure wine, my dear Monsieur Alphonse,” I said aloud. “I warned you.”
“Yes, that may be. But there is something much more terrible than that.”
He spoke in a halting voice. I concluded that he was downright tipsy.
“You remember my ring?” he continued, after a pause.
“Well! has it been stolen?”
“No.”
“Then you have it?”
“No—I—I can’t take it off that infernal Venus’s finger!”