"Look you, my dear fellow, if ever you need my help in thrashing that scoundrel, you will afford me a very great pleasure, and I beg you not to forget me. I am a good-for-naught, I admit; I love all the women whose physique makes them worth the trouble of loving; I deceive them without scruple, because they pay me back in my own coin. In that respect, I fancy you are not unlike me. But to strike a woman, to inflict bodily suffering on a weak creature to whom we have owed the most delicious of joys!--oh! that is infamous, execrable! No infidelity can excuse such barbarous conduct!"

"You are quite right, Balloquet. Remember the two lines that have never grown old, despite their antiquity:

"'Let shallow fops cry out, and fools lament; The honest man, deceived, departs and says no word.'

Au revoir, Balloquet! you will let me know about the poor girl, won't you?"

"To be sure! I will call on you and give you my address, when I have one."

XXVIII

A WORD OF ADVICE.--AN a.s.sIGNATION

It was cold, but the weather was superb. On leaving Balloquet, the whim seized me to take a turn about the garden of the Tuileries. I found many people in the garden. Fashionably attired ladies, well supplied with furs and warm cloaks, were seated along the main avenue, near the Terra.s.se des Feuillants. I glanced at them without stopping, but with the pleasure that one has in looking at flowers when one walks through a flower garden.

Suddenly I felt an involuntary thrill; I had recognized Madame Sordeville, but not until I was almost face to face with her. I was about to look the other way, when I saw another familiar face beside Armantine's: Madame Dauberny was sitting with her friend. They had seen me, and both had their eyes fixed on me. To pretend not to see them was impossible, and I raised my hat.

Frederique barely moved her head, still looking at me, but maintaining the grave and almost frigid expression which she had adopted with me. It was not so with Madame Sordeville; she smiled upon me most affably, and said in her sweetest voice, as she pointed to a vacant chair by her side:

"Ah! is it you, Monsieur Rochebrune? I supposed that you had gone abroad, it is so long since we saw you. Pray sit down a moment with us.

As we must depend upon chance for meeting you, you will surely give us a few moments."

"If monsieur is in a hurry, why do you insist upon detaining him?" said Frederique, sharply. "For my part, I have never understood how anyone could compel a person to break an appointment wholly as a matter of courtesy."

But I had already seated myself beside Madame Sordeville, for I could not resist the charm of her smile. All my resolutions vanished before that smile, and I replied:

"I have time to stop; and even if I had any business on hand, I should be too happy to postpone it for such a pleasure."

Frederique said nothing; she sat erect in her chair, with her head thrown back a little, so that I could not see her face; but, as a compensation, I was able to look at Armantine to my heart's content, for she turned to me and said, with the same charmingly amiable expression:

"Why have you abandoned us so entirely, monsieur? Our house must have offered you very little attraction. Indeed, I can easily believe that our small parties are not very amusing; and yet, I had imagined that you would enjoy yourself there. I was very foolish, was I not?"

"No, madame; you were quite right. But urgent business----"

"Oh! don't talk like that, monsieur; you know perfectly well that we don't believe anything of the sort. You have found more entertainment with others, and you have been very sensible to give them the preference."

"You know that that is not true, madame."

"Know it, monsieur? How do you expect me to know anything, except that you suddenly ceased to come to us? It seems to me that I could not very well ask you the reason. I was talking with Frederique about you a moment ago."

"What! you thought of me, madame?"

"Yes," murmured Frederique, swaying back and forth on her chair; "Armantine was saying that you sang ballads beautifully."

Madame Sordeville nudged her friend; I believe, indeed, that she pinched her. As for myself, being not at all wounded by that malicious remark, I hastened to reply:

"If I had any pretension to be considered a singer, madame, what you have just said might mortify me; but as it has never occurred to me to hold myself out as anything of the sort, I will be the first to laugh with you over my performance at Madame Sordeville's."

"Mon Dieu! Monsieur Rochebrune, I have no idea why Frederique said that; I don't think that she did it to laugh at you, for, after all, it may happen to anyone not to be in condition for singing--to have trouble with his throat;--and he may sing perfectly well another time."

"He takes his revenge," said Frederique, in an undertone. "'This play is by a clever man who will take his revenge sooner or later.'--That's the consecrated phrase of newspaper critics after a play has failed."

"You seem to be very ill-disposed toward me, madame," I said, trying to catch a glimpse of Madame Dauberny's face; but I could not succeed.

"I, monsieur? Not in the least; I am joking, that's all. I am not one of those people whose feelings are changed by a false note."

Armantine seemed ill at ease, and hastened to change the subject. We talked about indifferent matters, but our eyes were not indifferent.

Madame Dauberny did not utter a word. Was she angry with me? did she still bear me a grudge? Surely it was a long while for a kiss to rankle!

I was almost grieved by Frederique's treatment of me, but Armantine made me forget it by the amiable way in which she talked with me. I had never seen her show so much pleasure in being with me. However, I realized that I must not wear my welcome out, so I took leave of them.

"Shall I still have to depend on chance meetings for a glimpse of you?"

asked Madame Sordeville, as she answered my salutation.

"No, madame; I shall not again wait for chance to serve me, as it might not always be so favorable."

Frederique nodded slightly in acknowledgment of my bow, but not a word, not a smile.

"Upon my word," thought I, "she's very sensitive for a _gaillarde_!"

Armantine, I had been told, was a flirt; and, indeed, I had been several times in a position to judge that it was not safe to rely on the hopes she aroused. But, without flattering myself that I could cure her of that failing, it was possible that she might love me. After all, I had never yet met a perfect woman; in truth, I had never sought one. In short, that lady had turned my head again by her glances and her smiles, and I had already forgotten the way she treated me at her two receptions; the resolution I had formed not to expose myself again to the risk of being made the plaything of a coquette did not hold out against the allurements she had practised on me. Mon Dieu! why should we keep our resolutions in love, when we have no resolution at all in respect to the most serious matters?

On the day following this meeting, I could contain myself no longer, and I made a careful toilet with the purpose of calling on Madame Sordeville; for I had noticed that she attached some importance to the costumes of her guests. That was another pardonable foible in a woman who thought constantly of dress, and who believed, in all probability, that everybody agreed with her as to the momentous nature of the subject.

I was preparing to go out, when Pomponne brought me a letter which had just been handed to the concierge with the request that it be delivered to me at once.

I did not know the writing; in such cases, the first thing one does after breaking the seal is to look at the signature. I saw at the foot of the page: _Frederique_.

What! Madame Dauberny writing to me! I lost no further time in reading the letter.

"You are probably intending to go to Madame Sordeville's. Do not go there, do not go to that house again; this is the best advice I can give you. If you are really desirous to see Armantine, if your love for her has revived, thanks to the coquetries she lavished upon you yesterday, see her elsewhere than at her own house. I write you these lines because I remember our pleasant intimacy, which was of short duration, but which has left in my heart marks of its pa.s.sage. So, trust me and take my advice. I should consider that I insulted you if I should ask you not to mention this warning.

"FReDeRIQUE."

The contents of that letter seemed to me most extraordinary. I read it over several times, but could not understand it. Frederique urged me not to go to Madame Sordeville's, but she gave me no reason, no hint, as to the purpose of that warning. It could be nothing more than a freak, the result of momentary ill humor with her friend. I was much perplexed by the letter, but I had no idea of following the advice contained therein.

Indeed, for some time past, Madame Dauberny had treated me so strangely, she had been so cold to me, that I found it hard to believe in that recrudescence of friendship of which she spoke in her letter. If she meant the warning seriously, why did she not come and speak to me herself? She had told me several times that she had no more hesitation in calling on a young man than on a friend of her own s.e.x.

And so, without giving another thought to Frederique's advice, I went at once to Madame Sordeville's.

I found Armantine in her dainty boudoir, surrounded by flowers and embroidery.

I do not know whether she expected me, but it seemed to me that her dress and her coiffure were even more coquettish than usual. Probably I was mistaken, and it was because I was not accustomed to gaze upon her charms that they produced that effect on me.

I was welcomed with extreme cordiality. Armantine had her merry, sarcastic, and melancholy moods. On the day in question, she seemed almost sentimental; she laughed less frequently than usual, but I considered her the more fascinating so.

She gave me her hand and bade me sit beside her, saying: