"Very well! my dear Arthur, that duel of yours annoyed me very much, because I was afraid that it would have set Fanny against me altogether. But, thank heaven! it did nothing of the kind."
"As if women were ever angry because a man fights for them! You evidently don't know them; on the contrary, it flatters their self-esteem--it serves to set them off a little."
"I have just seen Fanny, I met her at her sister's. I didn't expect to see her there. Ah! if you knew--I am still all upset by that meeting."
"Do you mean that you still love that young woman?"
"Do I love her! Alas! yes, I love her still, and I feel that my passion will make my whole life miserable."
"Did the little lady receive you coldly?"
"Why, no; on the contrary, she gave me a most delicious smile, and talked to me just as she used to before her marriage. In fact,--can you believe it?--she invited me to a large party that she gives next Thursday."
"And still you have a sad, woe-begone air! why, I should say that you have every reason to rejoice!"
"Because when this lady, who knows that you once adored her, and who must have seen that you love her still--when, I say, she asks you to come and see her, it means that she proposes to reward you for your constancy--to crown your passion. Pardieu! that's not hard to understand. Go to her party, my dear friend, and I'll stake my head that within six weeks the husband has rooms at the sign of the Stag or the Crescent, as long as you choose."
"Ah! what do you presume to imply? You imagine that Fanny is capable of betraying her husband, of forgetting her duty? No, no! she may be fickle, coquettish, if you please, but she will never be guilty. And I myself--oh! that is not my conception of love. A woman who shares her favors--who pretends to feel for one man the love which she really feels for another--oh! I should soon cease to love such a woman!"
"You are young, my dear Gustave; you are very young! You don't know the world as I do. You say that you still adore your Fanny, and that you wouldn't have her deceive her husband for you?"
"In the first place, she wouldn't do it!"
"I am strongly inclined to believe the contrary; but let us admit that you are right. I see but one means of making you happy, and that is to carry the young woman off. Do you want me to do that? I'll undertake it, if you do."