“Do you really start to-morrow?” asked Monsieur de l’Estorade, finding that he had started a subject which not only did not confound Monsieur Dorlange, but, on the contrary, gave him the opportunity to reply with a certain hauteur of tone and speech.

“Yes, and very early too; so that I must now take leave of you, having certain preparations still to make.”

So saying, Monsieur Dorlange rose, and after making me a rather ceremonious bow and not bestowing his hand on Monsieur de l’Estorade, who, in turn, did not hold out his own, he left the room.

“What was the matter with Armand?” asked my husband, as if to avoid any other explanation.

“Never mind Armand,” I said, “it is far more interesting to know what is the matter with you; for never did I see you so out of tune, so sharp and uncivil.”

“What! because I told a ridiculous candidate that he would have to go into mourning for his reputation?”

“In the first place, that was not complimentary; and in any case the moment was ill-chosen with a man on whom my maternal anxiety had just imposed a disagreeable service.”

“I don’t like meddlers,” retorted Monsieur de l’Estorade, raising his voice more than I had ever known him do to me.  “And after all, if he had not been here to give you his arm you would not have gone.”

“You are mistaken; I should have gone alone; for your servant, being master here, refused to accompany me.”

“But you must certainly admit that if any acquaintance had met you at half-past nine o’clock walking arm-in-arm with Monsieur Dorlange the thing would have seemed to them, to say the least, singular.”

Pretending to discover what I had known for the last hour, I exclaimed:—­

“Is it possible that after sixteen years of married life you do me the honor to be jealous.  Now I see why, in spite of your respect for proprieties, you spoke to Monsieur Dorlange in my presence of that Italian woman whom people think his mistress; that was a nice little perfidy by which you meant to ruin him in my estimation.”

Thus exposed to the light, my poor husband talked at random for a time, and finally had no resource but to ring for Lucas and lecture him severely.  That ended the explanation.

What do you think of this conjugal proceeding, by which my husband, wishing to do a man some harm in my estimation, gave him the opportunity to appear to the utmost advantage?  For—­there was no mistaking it—­the sort of emotion with which Monsieur Dorlange repelled the charge was the cry of a conscience at peace with itself, and which knows itself able to confound a calumny.

XII

DORLANGE TO MARIE-GASTON

Paris, May, 1839.