Le Cocu Part 28

"No, she wouldn't do anything; but she is jealous, and it would make her unhappy."

"She would be very foolish to be jealous of me."

"That is true; but jealous people often are foolish, you know."

"Henri, I am going to make a proposition to you."

"What is it?"

"Take me to dinner instead of your wife. You can tell her this evening that you had an engagement that you couldn't break."

"No, I haven't reached that point yet, thank heaven!"

"Oh! I was only joking, monsieur; I know that you are too virtuous to play such a trick. Have you got ants on your legs?"

"No, but I don't want to stand here."

"Very well; let us walk then."

"I don't want to walk with you."

"But what if I don't choose to leave you?"

"I beg you, Lucile, let me go."

"Dear me! monsieur a.s.sumes his sentimental air. Look you, the garden is free to all; if I choose to walk beside you, you have no right to prevent me. Besides, I am very curious to see your wife. Will she eat me if she finds me with you? Ah! monsieur refuses to answer any more questions; monsieur is angry."

"Yes, madame, I confess that I don't understand what motive induces you to act as you are acting. It is pure malice, and it seems to me that I have given you no reason to treat me so."

"Indeed! it seems so to you, does it? You have a very short memory. It seems to me that I have many reasons for revenging myself on you."

"Madame, you must have other people to think about who interest you much more than I do; and in the four years since we ceased to see each other, I am surprised that you remember me at all."

"It is certain that you hardly deserve it. But what would you have?

Perhaps that is the reason."

"Lucile, some other day we will talk as long as you wish; but to-day, I beg you, leave me; don't stay with me."

"Ha! ha! you make me laugh!"

I began to walk very fast; Lucile did the same, continuing to talk to me, although I did not reply. I saw that people were staring at us, because I had the aspect of running away from a woman who was pursuing me. I was in dismay. At last I stopped.

"This is a horrible thing that you are doing, Lucile."

"Well, calm yourself, I will leave you, for you make my heart ache. You start convulsively every time you see a woman! But tell me first, have you my portrait still?"

"Your portrait? Why, I don't know, I will look."

"I want you to give it back to me. You can't care anything about it, and I want it, for it was very like me."

"I will give it to you."

"I still live on the same street, but two houses beyond."

"Very well; I will bring it to you."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

"Ah! that will be very kind of you. Adieu, my dear Henri. Come, don't be angry any more and don't forget what you have just promised."

"No, I----"

The words died out on my lips, for I caught sight of my wife within two yards of us, pale and trembling, and gazing directly at us. And at that moment, Lucile had offered me her hand as she bade me good-bye, and I, overjoyed because she was about to leave me, was shaking hands with her in the friendliest way! Eugenie had seen all that, and Lucile, noticing the sudden change in my features, turned, glanced at my wife, smiled a mocking smile, and walked away, bidding me adieu again in a most unceremonious fas.h.i.+on. Ah! I did not know what I would do to her!

I walked toward my wife. My manner was certainly as embarra.s.sed as if I were guilty.

"So here you are. I was talking with a lady whom I had just met."

"Yes, I saw that lady, and I heard her too. What is the use, monsieur, of making an appointment with me, of bringing me here to witness such things?"

"Well, upon my word! Now you are going to discover something wrong in this; but I swear----"

"Oh! it costs you nothing to swear! Who is that woman? Is it your former neighbor, Madame Ernest?"

"Oh! no indeed! It's a woman whom I--whom I knew before I was married."

"Ah! one of your former mistresses, I suppose."

"Well! what if that were the fact? As I have not seen her for a long time----"

"You have ceased to see her, and yet she has the a.s.surance to talk with you so freely, holding your hand and looking into the whites of your eyes! And she laughed in my face when she went away. Ah! she has a most impudent manner! But I shall know her again. I had plenty of time to look at her, for you didn't see me, you were so engrossed with that woman! You promised her something, for she said to you: 'Don't forget what you have just promised me.'--Is that so, monsieur?"

"Great heaven! it is very possible, madame. I have no very clear idea what she said to me, for I wanted but one thing, and that was to get rid of her; for I suspected that if you saw me talking with her, it would put a lot of crazy ideas into your head."

"Crazy ideas! you expect me to see you with a woman like that, and not to object to it! Ah! I am suffocating! I cannot stand any more!"

She put her handkerchief to her eyes. I took her hand and led her away, for I had no desire to make a spectacle of myself again on the Terra.s.se des Feuillants. We walked along the Champs-Elysees for some time, without speaking. I stopped in front of a restaurant and started to go in.

"What is this place?"

"A restaurant, where we are to dine."

"It is no use, I am not hungry; I want to go home."

"You know very well that everything in our apartment is packed up, and that we can't dine there. Really, Eugenie, you are making yourself miserable for no reason at all. How can you think that if I had relations with that woman, I would be with her where I knew that you were coming?"

"What did you promise her?"