“But if it will kill you?”
“Bah. What do I care? When one lives, one amuses oneself. And I have well amused myself, eh, Yvonne? For the rest, je m’en fiche!”
He went on talking with airy cynicism. To Yvonne it seemed some horrible dream. The husband she had looked upon as dead was before her, gay, mocking, just as she had known him of old. And he greeted her after all these years with the-same lightness as he had bidden her farewell.
“Et toi, Yvonne?” said he at length. “Ça roule toujours? You look as if you were brewing money. Ravishing costume. Crépon—not twenty-five centimes a yard! A hat that looks like the Rue de la Paix! Gants de reine et petites bottines de duchesse! You must be doing golden business. But speak, petite, since I assure you I am not a ghost!”
Yvonne forced a faint smile. She tried to answer him, but her heart was thumping violently and a lump rose in her throat.
“I am doing very well, Amédée,” she said. The dreadfulness of her position came over her. She felt sick and faint. What was going to happen? For some moments she did not hear him as he spoke. At last perception returned.
“And you are pretty,” Amédée Bazouge was saying. “Mais jolie à croquer—prettier than you ever were. And I—I am going down the hill at the gallop. Tiens, Yvonne. Let us celebrate this meeting. Come and see me safe to the bottom. It won’t be long. I have money. I am always bon enfant. Let us remarry. From to-day. Ce serait rigolo! And I will love you—mais énormément!”
“But I am already married!” cried Yvonne.
“Thinking me dead?”
“Yes.”