What a blow is this announcement by Justine:  “Madame, here’s a letter!”

A letter in place of Ferdinand!  How does she ever open it?  What ages of life slip by as she unfolds it!  Women know this by experience!  As to men, when they are in such maddening passes, they murder their shirt-frills.

“Justine, Monsieur Ferdinand is ill!” exclaims Caroline.  “Send for a carriage.”

As Justine goes down stairs, Adolphe comes up.

“My poor mistress!” observes Justine.  “I guess she won’t want the carriage now.”

“Oh my!  Where have you come from?” cries Caroline, on seeing Adolphe standing in ecstasy before her voluptuous breakfast.

Adolphe, whose wife long since gave up treating him to such charming banquets, does not answer.  But he guesses what it all means, as he sees the cloth inscribed with the delightful ideas which Madame de Fischtaminel or the syndic of Chaumontel’s affair have often inscribed for him upon tables quite as elegant.

“Whom are you expecting?” he asks in his turn.

“Who could it be, except Ferdinand?” replies Caroline.

“And is he keeping you waiting?”

“He is sick, poor fellow.”

A quizzical idea enters Adolphe’s head, and he replies, winking with one eye only:  “I have just seen him.”

“Where?”

“In front of the Cafe de Paris, with some friends.”

“But why have you come back?” says Caroline, trying to conceal her murderous fury.

“Madame Foullepointe, who was tired of Charles, you said, has been with him at Ville d’Avray since yesterday.”

Adolphe sits down, saying:  “This has happened very appropriately, for
I’m as hungry as two bears.”

Caroline sits down, too, and looks at Adolphe stealthily:  she weeps internally:  but she very soon asks, in a tone of voice that she manages to render indifferent, “Who was Ferdinand with?”

“With some fellows who lead him into bad company.  The young man is getting spoiled:  he goes to Madame Schontz’s.  You ought to write to your uncle.  It was probably some breakfast or other, the result of a bet made at M’lle Malaga’s.”  He looks slyly at Caroline, who drops her eyes to conceal her tears.  “How beautiful you have made yourself this morning,” Adolphe resumes.  “Ah, you are a fair match for your breakfast.  I don’t think Ferdinand will make as good a meal as I shall,” etc., etc.

Adolphe manages the joke so cleverly that he inspires his wife with the idea of punishing Ferdinand.  Adolphe, who claims to be as hungry as two bears, causes Caroline to forget that a carriage waits for her at the door.

The female that tends the gate at the house Ferdinand lives in, arrives at about two o’clock, while Adolphe is asleep on a sofa.  That Iris of bachelors comes to say to Caroline that Monsieur Ferdinand is very much in need of some one.

“He’s drunk, I suppose,” says Caroline in a rage.