"Very well. But what shall I say to people whom I do not know?"
"Oh! don't let that trouble you! You just bow and smile to every one. With your grace and your wit you will always be fascinating."
"I would like to be fascinating to you alone."
"Do you mean that I am unfaithful to you? I am really so good----"
"That some day you will be laughed at for it."
"Never fear, I love you only.--I am going to send a few more invitations; prepare for our party."
Edouard kissed his wife and left her. Adeline, in order to please him, inquired about what was to be done on the following day; she was alarmed at the magnitude of the expense, but it was too late to oppose it. After giving her orders, the young wife went to see her mother. It was on Madame Germeuil's bosom that she poured out her grief, though she concealed much of it, in order not to make her mother more bitter against her husband.
"Oh!" said Adeline, "so long as he is faithful to me, I shall have nothing to complain of. I can forgive him everything except indifference, which I absolutely could not endure."
The next day, at daybreak, everything was in confusion in the Murville establishment. The servants could not attend to the innumerable preparations which were under way on every side; workmen came to put carpets and chandeliers in place and vases of flowers along the stair-rails. The mirror-maker's apprentices, upholsterers, florists and decorators filled the salons, and got in the way of the footmen and other servants. Soon the caterers arrived, the pastry cooks and the ice dealer's men, who took possession of the servants' quarters and began the decoration of the sideboards, which were to be furnished in the evening in the most sumptuous way, and to offer everything which could fascinate the eyes, the nose and the palate at once. Adeline attempted to pass through several rooms to her husband's office; she was bewildered by the uproar, the shouts, the tumult; she could not recognize her own apartments. At last she spied Edouard walking about the salons, and watching with a self-satisfied air the preparations for the party.
"Well, my dear love," he said to his wife as soon as he caught sight of her, "what do you think of all this?"