“I have been able to get in at last. I have duly been five times to Besançon in order to see you. Could never get in. I put someone by the door to watch. Why the devil don’t you ever go out?”
“It is a test which I have imposed on myself.”
“I find you greatly changed, but here you are again. I have just learned from a couple of good five franc pieces that I was only a fool not to have offered them on my first journey.”
The conversation of the two friends went on for ever. Julien changed colour when Fouqué said to him,
“Do you know, by the by, that your pupils’ mother has become positively devout.”
And he began to talk in that off-hand manner which makes so singular an impression on the passionate soul, whose dearest interests are being destroyed without the speaker having the faintest suspicion of it.
“Yes, my friend, the most exalted devoutness. She is said to make pilgrimages. But to the eternal shame of the abbé Maslon, who has played the spy so long on that poor M. Chélan, Madame de Rênal would have nothing to do with him. She goes to confession to Dijon or Besançon.”
“She goes to Besançon,” said Julien, flushing all over his forehead.
“Pretty often,” said Fouqué in a questioning manner.
“Have you got any Constitutionnels on you?”