"You are afraid that I shall not always find you agreeable?--what nonsense! When you are with me, I am happy, and that is enough for me.

Be thoughtful, abstracted--serious even! I see you and am with you; I ask nothing more. I say to myself: 'He is thinking about his work, about some new plot, perhaps. I mustn't disturb him. In a moment, he will come back to me; he will see that I am by his side.'"

"Ah! Nathalie! I love you so dearly! Do you know, it seems to me sometimes that I love you too much!"

"One never loves too much, my dear, when he inspires as much love as he gives. Believe me, you do not go ahead of me!"

And, on leaving her, Adhemar said to himself:

"Yes, she really loves me; for, if she doesn't, why should she pretend to? What motive has she to deceive me? She certainly is not guided by any selfish interest, for she refuses to receive the slightest present from me; she told me in the most positive terms that she would be seriously angry with me if I gave her anything but flowers!--'I have the wherewithal to satisfy all my tastes and fancies,' she said; 'I want nothing from you but love; the best gift from you would offend me, for I should say to myself that you thought it was necessary to make me love you!'--I had no choice but to obey her.--Upon my word, I believe I have found a woman who will not deceive me! it's a miracle!"

In return for her affection, Madame Dermont demanded from her lover nothing but entire confidence; she would not admit the possibility of his being jealous, and often said to him:

"To suspect the woman you love is an insult to her; as you are perfectly sure that I love you, you should never dream for an instant that I am deceiving you."

Adhemar thought that Nathalie was perfectly right; but jealousy is a sentiment that does not come and go at the word of command; some people are born jealous, just as some are born quarrelsome, petulant, or cowardly. Education may teach us to disguise our failings, but it does not eradicate them.

One morning, calling at Madame Dermont's a little earlier than usual, Adhemar found her with a clouded brow; and although she received him with her accustomed cordiality, it seemed to him that she was distraught and that her smile was not so frank and open as usual. He fixed his eyes on hers and asked:

"Has anything gone wrong with you this morning?"

"With me, my dear? Why, no! nothing, I a.s.sure you."

"You seem preoccupied, however; is nothing troubling you?"

"What do you suppose can be troubling me?"

"Nothing, I trust! But I ask you the question."

"My dear, so long as you love me, nothing will ever trouble me."

"So much the better; in that case, nothing ever will. I was thinking that, as we are not always together--that is to say, in my absence you might have had visitors."

"You are mistaken, my dear; for me, you are never absent; you are constantly in my thoughts."

Adhemar put his mistress's hand to his lips. But in a few minutes his brow darkened anew; he drew a long breath, then exclaimed:

"This is very strange!"

"What is, my dear?"

"It smells of tobacco smoke here."

"Do you think so? I don't smell anything."

"Oh! that's because you don't choose to. It smells of tobacco, and of poor tobacco, too! I should think that someone had been smoking a pipe here."

Madame Dermont turned her head away as she replied:

"It may have been the water carrier who brought the smell here."

"The water carrier? I didn't suppose that he came into your bedroom, and your kitchen is some distance away. That was not a happy reply."

"Mon Dieu! my dear, what do you mean by that? Not a happy reply! Do you mean to say that you attach any importance to such a trifle?"

"A trifle! You know, madame, the proverb says that there's no smoke without some fire; and, in like manner, there's no smell of tobacco smoke without a smoker. I came too early to-day, probably!"

"What do you mean by that, monsieur?"

"I mean--it's easy enough to understand! You have had some visitor who was smoking. The devil! a man must be on very familiar terms with a lady to smoke in her bedroom! Who has been here to see you so early?"

Nathalie paced the floor impatiently, murmuring:

"What a lot of questions about a smell that may have come from the neighbor's!"

"Oh, no! you have no neighbor on this side."

"So this is your confidence in me, Adhemar?--'I shall never be jealous,'

you said."

"Women are the most astonishing creatures! When you ask them a question, they answer with another, which is a very clever way of not answering at all. Will you tell me who has been here this morning, who has had the presumption to smoke a pipe in your apartment, or, at all events, to poison the air with the smell of a pipe?"

"No one, monsieur."

"Very well, madame; I came too early to-day; that will teach me a lesson for another time."

And Adhemar seized his hat and rushed from the room; while Nathalie, having at first started to detain him, overcame the impulse to do so.

"She has certainly had a visitor who smoked," said Adhemar to himself, as he went away, "but she won't admit it. I don't claim that she shouldn't receive anyone at all; but if that was an innocent visit, she wouldn't have denied it. So she evidently has mysteries--secrets from me. Therefore, she deceives me; she's no better than the rest. Ah, me! I ought to have expected it! It's all over; I will never go to her house again!"

All day long, the jealous wretch kept repeating those words: "I will never go to her house again!" And he rushed hither and thither, to cafes and theatres and parties; did all that he could to divert his thoughts, and did not succeed. The next day he was very much depressed, and said to himself as he went out:

"I will not go to see her, that is sure! What a shame! I loved her so dearly--more than I have ever before loved a woman! That makes her treachery the more outrageous. Ah! I was very wise to make up my mind that I would never care for any woman again."

Musing thus as he walked, Adhemar arrived in front of the house where Madame Dermont lived.

"So much for habit!" he thought. "I came here without knowing it. But I won't go in. Still, I may as well walk in this neighborhood as anywhere.

I'll look at her windows; that will give me something to think about."

For two hours he walked up and down in front of the house, gazing at Nathalie's windows, walking rapidly away when he fancied that he saw someone through the gla.s.s, and sighing when he saw no one. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder; it was one of his colleagues, who said to him:

"What on earth are you doing here, Adhemar? Are you on the lookout for a scene or a denouement?"

"Faith! yes; I was thinking over a new subject."

"Come with me; you can tell me your plan as we walk."

"I'll go with you gladly; but I won't tell you anything, because you would want to be in the play."