"Oh! monsieur, what are you saying? What! Edmond Didier?"

"I am telling you the truth; I am opening your eyes; I am doing you a service."

"It's a service which causes me a great deal of pain, then."

"What difference does it make to you whether she loves that young man or another, so long as she doesn't love you?"

"But I hoped that she would love me, monsieur."

"If that's your hope, don't despair; who knows? women are so strange, they have such surprising caprices; it is quite possible that she won't always spurn you.--By the way, pardon the question, but are you rich, monsieur?"

"Not very; I make four or five thousand francs a year."

"In that case, my dear monsieur, you have no great chance of succeeding with Thelenie; and if you are wise enough to follow some good advice, you will forget her and cease to bother your head about her.--But, excuse me--I go in this direction. Good-day, monsieur."

"A thousand pardons, monsieur, but it would be a great pleasure to me to know with whom I have had the honor of conversing."

"Here is my card, monsieur."

"And here is mine, monsieur; I have a real estate office, and if you should ever have any business that hangs fire----"

"Be a.s.sured, monsieur, that I shall remember you."

Beauregard walked away, while Chamoureau read the card he held in his hand, saying to himself:

"He was once Madame Sainte-Suzanne's lover! and Edmond is now! and I am nothing at all! I have acted as an information machine, that is all!--Ah! I am not surprised that she expressly forbade me to mention her name. Well! all this doesn't prevent my adoring her. Monsieur Beauregard advises me not to think of her any more; but perhaps he still thinks of her himself; if he doesn't, why does he go to see her? That is something he would have found it difficult to explain, I fancy.

Perhaps what he told me about Edmond isn't true. That man has a sardonic expression; I think that I shall do well to be suspicious of him.--O Eleonore! I am grieved that I no longer weep for you!"

XVI

AN ELECTRIC SPARK

Chamoureau went home completely overwhelmed by what he had learned in his interview with Monsieur Beauregard. He thought of nothing else all the rest of the day, the result being that it did not occur to him to go to Monsieur Courtivaux and conclude the negotiation that Madame Dalmont had entrusted to him. He asked himself every moment whether he should try once more to see Edmond, and question him on the subject of his liaison with Madame Sainte-Suzanne; but he remembered that she had expressly forbidden him to mention her name to anyone.

"To be sure," he said to himself, "I have already broken my promise by talking about her with this Monsieur Beauregard; but that wasn't my fault. That man caught me in Madame Sainte-Suzanne's reception-room, so I could not deny that I knew her; and the familiar way in which he asked for her proved conclusively that he knew her very well indeed!"

On the following day our widower was still undecided, hesitating whether he ought or ought not to talk to Edmond about the lady with the beautiful black eyes.

Hesitating people often pa.s.s whole days unable to decide what to do, and when, after mature consideration, they say to themselves: "I will decide on this course," you see them suddenly change their minds and pause just as they are about to act. Such characters generally fail in whatever they undertake, because they never do it in time.

In a business agent, this failing is even more dangerous than in anybody else. The agent with whom we have to do had two reasons for not attending to the business placed in his hands: in addition to his habitual indecision, he was in love, pa.s.sionately in love, with a woman with whom he had no hope of success, which fact necessarily increased his love. It is always the thing that we cannot have for which we crave.

Chamoureau then was at home, saying to himself:

"I think I will go to Edmond Didier and tell him the whole truth; or rather, tell him nothing, but question him shrewdly. I will lead him on to talk of his love-affairs. He will begin about little Amelia, and then I will say: 'No, it's not that one, but another--a very beautiful brunette--that I want to talk to you about.'

"Yes, but then he will reply: 'How do you know that I ever knew a very beautiful brunette? Do you know her yourself?'--d.a.m.nation! it's terribly embarra.s.sing!"

At that moment the doorbell rang and shortly after, Edmond Didier entered the office.

"My dear Monsieur Chamoureau," he said, "I understand that you have been to my room several times to see me; I have come to find out what you had to say to me and in what way I can be of service to you?"

Chamoureau was stupefied when he saw Edmond; he recovered himself, however, and composed his features.

"Ah! good morning, Monsieur Edmond; I am very glad to see you; it gives me great pleasure. You are well, I hope?"

"Very well. But I fancy that it wasn't to inquire for my health that you came to see me three times in one day?"

"No, of course not, although I take great interest in it. But Freluchon--have you seen Freluchon lately?"

"He started for Rouen and may have gone as far as Havre, to treat his little Pompadour to fresh oysters; for you know that his taking her to Normandie was the result of a bet that his latest conquest won at that supper of ours, by smoking through her nose."

"I know--or, rather, I don't know--for you must remember that I dozed a little toward the end of the supper."

"Ah, yes! that is true; I had forgotten."

"And that little woman in the Pompadour costume smokes through her nose, does she?"

"That is to say, she holds the cigar in her mouth, like everybody else, but she discharges the smoke through her nostrils; which is rather strong for a woman."

"It is, indeed; I wouldn't do it myself, although I smoke a little. How accomplished women are in this age! If this goes on, I should not be surprised to see them chewing tobacco in time."

"Oh! Monsieur Chamoureau, what are you saying!"

"Bless me! I keep track of the progress of mankind. In the old days, ladies wouldn't allow smoking in their presence; to-day they smoke themselves. From that to chewing tobacco in the shape of pastilles of mint or cachou isn't a very long road to travel."

"Well, let us come to what you had to say to me. I am in more or less of a hurry. It's a fine day, and I promised Amelia to take her to the Bois this morning. We may go as far as Ville d'Avray."

"Amelia! what? the young flower-maker who was at the supper, dressed as a _debardeur_?"

"Herself; I have made up with her; she is amusing and quite bright; on the whole, I like her very well."

"You really like her, eh? And you have no other mistress?"

"Faith, no! not for the moment, at all events."

"Dear Monsieur Edmond! You see, I have been told that you adored a magnificent brunette--a tall, handsome woman, with a fine figure----"

"Ah! you mean Thelenie."

Chamoureau changed color as he stammered:

"Yes, that's the name--Thelenie; that's the name I heard; or Madame--Madame----"

"Sainte-Suzanne?"