“Why did you show her the preference?”

“Ah!  My dear friend, she is younger.”

“The devil!”

“Yes; so I gave each of them her days, regular days, to avoid confusion; Saturday and Monday for the old one, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday for the new one.”

“Why did you show her the preference?”

“Ah!  My dear friend, she is younger.”

“So that only gave you two days to yourself in a week.”

“That is enough for one.”

“Allow me to compliment you on that.”

“Well, just fancy that the most ridiculous and most annoying thing in the world happened to me.  For four months everything had been going on perfectly; I felt perfectly safe, and I was really very happy, when suddenly, last Monday, the crash came.

“I was expecting my regular one at the usual time, a quarter past one, and was smoking a good cigar, and dreaming, very well satisfied with myself, when I suddenly saw that it was past the time, at which I was much surprised, for she is very punctual, but I thought that something might have accidentally delayed her.  However, half-an-hour passed, then an hour, an hour and a half, and then I knew that something must have detained her; a sick headache, perhaps, or some annoying visitor.  That sort of waiting is very vexatious, that ... useless waiting ... very annoying and enervating.  At last, I made up my mind to go out, and not knowing what to do, I went to her and found her reading a novel.”

“Well!” I said to her.  And she replied quite calmly: 

“My dear I could not come; I was hindered.”

“How?”

“My ... something else.”

“What was it?

“A very annoying visit.”

“I saw that she would not tell me the true reason, and as she was very calm, I did not trouble myself any more about it, and hoped to make up for lost time with the other, the next day, and on the Tuesday, I was very ... very excited, and amorous in expectation of the public official’s little wife, and I was surprised that she had not come before the appointed time, and I looked at the clock every moment, and watched the hands impatiently, but the quarter past, then the half-hour, then two o’clock.  I could not sit still any longer, and walked up and down very soon in great strides, putting my face against the window, and my ears to the door, to listen whether she was not coming upstairs.”

“Half-past two, three o’clock!  I seized my hat, and rushed to her house.  She was reading a novel my dear fellow!  ‘Well!’ I said, anxiously, and she replied as calmly as usual:  ‘I was hindered, and could not come.’

“‘By what?’

“‘An annoying visit.’

“Of course, I immediately thought that they both knew everything, but she seemed so calm and quiet, that I set aside my suspicions, and thought it was only some strange coincidence, as I could not believe in such dissimulation on her part, and so, after half-an-hour’s friendly talk, which was, however, interrupted a dozen times by her little girl coming in and out of the room.  I went away, very much annoyed.  Just imagine the next day....”