"Sophie, you are not telling me the truth."
"I see you are pale and changed. Yes, since yesterday you have suffered, and suffered much, I am sure."
"No," replied the young woman, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, "you are mistaken."
"Sophie," said Madeleine, quickly taking her friend's hands in her own, "you do not know how much your lack of confidence distresses me; you will make me think you have some complaint against me."
"What are you saying?" cried Sophie, pained by this suspicion, "you are and you will always be my best friend, and I am only afraid of fatiguing you with my grievances."
"Ah, again?" replied the marquise, in a tone of affectionate reproach.
"Forgive me, forgive me, Madeleine; but really, is it not enough to confide to your friends your real sorrows, without saddening them by the confession of vague apprehensions, which are, nevertheless, very distressing?"
"My dear Sophie, tell me these apprehensions."
"Since yesterday,--but, again, I say no, no, I shall appear too foolish to you."
"You appear foolish to me, well, what of it? Speak, I beseech you."
"Ah, well, it seems to me that since yesterday my husband is under the influence of some idea which completely absorbs him."
"No, oh, no; it is something else, and that is what confounds and alarms me."
"Yesterday, after your departure, it had been agreed that he would undertake two measures of great importance to us. Seeing the hour slip away I went into our chamber, where he had gone to dress himself. I found him with his working apparel on, seated before a table, his head leaning on his hand; he had not heard me enter. 'Charles,' said I to him, 'you forget the hour. You are to go out, you know.' 'Why am I to go out?' he asked. 'My God! why, on urgent business,' and I recalled to his mind the two matters requiring his immediate attention. 'You are right,' said he, 'I had not thought of them again.' 'But what are you thinking of, Charles,' I asked. He blushed, appeared embarrassed, and did not answer a word."
"Perhaps he has some project, some plan he is meditating, that he thinks he ought not to confide to you yet."
"That is possible; yet he has never hidden anything from me, even his most undeveloped plans. No, no, it is not business affairs which absorb him, because yesterday, instead of talking with his father and me of the state of things, which I confess to you, Madeleine, is graver than I thought, or than I told you, Charles talked of things altogether irrelevant to the subject which concerned us so deeply. And then I did not have the courage to blame him, because he talked to us especially of you."