"You astonish me! I thought you friends."
"Friends!" repeated Bouchereau, with mingled irony, and indignation.
"_Que diantre!_ Speak out, or hold your tongue. I am no Oedipus to guess your riddle."
The impatience that sparkled in the doctor's eyes brought his doleful friend to the substance of his intended confession.
"Well, my dear Magnian," said he, in an agitated voice, "in two words, here is the case: Pelletier makes love to my wife."
To conceal a smile, the doctor protruded his under-lip, and nodded his head several times with affected gravity.
"Who would have thought it?" he at last exclaimed. "I never suspected the great dragoon of such good taste. But are you quite sure? Husbands are usually the last persons to discover those things."
"I am only too sure; and you shall hear how. My wife is at Fontainbleau, passing a few days with her mother. The day before yesterday I happened to remark that the key of my desk fitted her drawers. Mechanically, I opened one of them, and in a sort of mysterious pigeon-hole I found several letters from Pelletier."
"The deuce you did! But why open drawers belonging to your wife?"
"It is my right. Besides, do not judge hastily. From the tenor of the correspondence, I am convinced Virginia's only fault is to have received the letters and concealed the fact from me. I am pretty sure she has given the writer no encouragement, and I am therefore much less angry with her than with Pelletier. Him I will never pardon. A man to whom I have thrown open my house! an old comrade at Sainte Barbe! A friend, in short; at least I thought him so!"
"You forget that one is never betrayed but by one's friends."
"I reproached him with his shameful conduct. Can you guess his answer?"
"At first. But when I showed him his letters he saw it was useless to lie. 'My dear Bouchereau,' he said, in his impertinent manner, 'since you know all about it, I will not take the trouble to contradict you. It is perfectly true that I am in love with your wife; I have told her so already, and I cannot promise you that I will not tell her so again, for very likely I should not keep my promise. I perfectly understand my conduct may be disagreeable to you, but you know I am too much the gentleman not to accept the responsibility of my acts and deeds. And if you feel offended, I am at your orders, ready to give you satisfaction, when, where, and how you like.'"