“It was very gay indeed!” answered the young woman, making a wry face.
“Do you! Then you are not hard to please. We went to the Vaudeville, it is true, but separately, as we always do, I alone above, you below. At the ball you looked as though you were burying the devil. At the supper table your friends were as melancholy as a pair of owls. I obeyed your orders by affecting hardly to know you. You imbibed like a sponge, without my being able to tell whether you were drunk or not.”
“That proves,” interrupted Noel, “that we ought not to force our tastes. Let us talk of something else.”
He took a few steps in the room, then looking at his watch said: “Almost one o’clock; my love, I must leave you.”
“No, to my great regret; my mother is dangerously ill.”
He unfolded and counted out on the table the bank notes he had received from old Tabaret.
“My little Juliette,” said he, “here are not eight thousand francs, but ten thousand. You will not see me again for a few days.”
“No; but my entire time will be absorbed by an affair of immense importance to myself. If I succeed in my undertaking, my dear, our future happiness is assured, and you will then see whether I love you!”
“Tell me I beseech you,” pleaded the young woman, hanging round his neck, raising herself upon the tips of her toes to press her lips to his. The advocate embraced her; and his resolution seemed to waver.
“No,” said he at length, “seriously I cannot. Of what use to awaken in you hopes which can never be realized? Now, my darling, listen to me. Whatever may happen, understand, you must under no pretext whatever again come to my house, as you once had the imprudence to do. Do not even write to me. By disobeying, you may do me an irreparable injury. If any accident occurs, send that old rascal Clergot to me. I shall have a visit from him the day after to-morrow, for he holds some bills of mine.”
Juliette recoiled, menacing Noel with a mutinous gesture. “You will not tell me anything?” insisted she.
“Not this evening, but very soon,” replied the advocate, embarrassed by the piercing glance of his mistress.
“Always some mystery!” cried Juliette, piqued at the want of success attending her blandishments.
“Noel, my good man,” said the young woman in a serious tone, “you are hiding something from me. I understand you, as you know; for several days past there has been something or other the matter with you, you have completely changed.”