While Castanier was enduring the torture of the strain, and his thoughts were full of the deed that should change his whole life, Aquilina was lying luxuriously back in a great armchair by the fireside, beguiling the time by chatting with her waiting-maid.  As frequently happens in such cases, the maid had become the mistress’s confidante, Jenny having first assured herself that her mistress’s ascendancy over Castanier was complete.

What are we to do this evening?  Leon seems determined to come,” Mme. de la Garde was saying, as she read a passionate epistle indicted upon a faint gray note paper.

“Here is the master!” said Jenny.

Castanier came in.  Aquilina, nowise disconcerted, crumpled up the letter, took it with the tongs, and held it in the flames.

“So that is what you do with your love letters, is it?” asked Castanier.

“Oh, goodness, yes,” said Aquilina; “is it not the best way of keeping them safe?  Besides, fire should go to the fire, as water makes for the river.”

“You are talking as if it were a real love letter, Naqui—­”

“Well, am I not handsome enough to receive them?” she said, holding up her forehead for a kiss.  There was a carelessness in her manner that would have told any man less blind than Castanier that it was only a piece of conjugal duty, as it were, to give this joy to the cashier; but use and wont had brought Castanier to the point where clear-sightedness is no longer possible for love.

“I have taken a box at the Gymnase this evening,” he said; “let us have dinner early, and then we need not dine in a hurry.”

“Go and take Jenny.  I am tired of plays.  I do not know what is the matter with me this evening; I would rather stay here by the fire.”

“Come, all the same though, Naqui; I shall not be here to bore you much longer.  Yes, Quiqui, I am going to start to-night, and it will be some time before I come back again.  I am leaving everything in your charge.  Will you keep your heart for me too?”

“Neither my heart nor anything else,” she said; “but when you come back again, Naqui will still be Naqui for you.”

“Well, this is frankness.  So you would not follow me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Eh! why, how can I leave the lover who writes me such sweet little notes?” she asked, pointing to the blackened scrap of paper with a mocking smile.

“Is there any truth in it?” asked Castanier.  “Have you really a lover?”

“Really!” cried Aquilina; “and have you never given it a serious thought, dear?  To begin with, you are fifty years old.  Then you have just the sort of face to put on a fruit stall; if the woman tried to sell you for a pumpkin, no one would contradict her.  You puff and blow like a seal when you come upstairs; your paunch rises and falls like the diamond on a woman’s forehead!  It is pretty plain that you served in the dragoons; you are a very ugly-looking old man.  Fiddle-de-dee.  If you have any mind to keep my respect, I recommend you not to add imbecility to these qualities by imagining that such a girl as I am will be content with your asthmatic love, and not look for youth and good looks and pleasure by way of variety—­”