One morning I said to Rosalie: “Tell me all you know about Madame de Merret.”
“Oh!” she replied in terror, “do not ask that of me, Monsieur Horace.”
Her pretty face fell—her clear, bright color faded—and her eyes lost their innocent brightness.
“Well, then,” she said, at last, “if you must have it so, I will tell you about it; but promise to keep my secret!”
“Done! my dear girl, I must keep your secret with the honor of a thief, which is the most loyal in the world.”
Were I to transcribe Rosalie`s diffuse eloquence faithfully, an entire volume would scarcely contain it; so I shall abridge.
The room occupied by Madame de Merret at the Breteche was on the ground floor. A little closet about four feet deep, built in the thick¬ness of the wall, served as her wardrobe. Three months before the eventful evening of which I am about to speak, Madame de Merret had been so seriously indisposed that her husband had left her to herself in her own apartment, while he occupied another on the first floor.
Impossible to foresee
By one of those chances that it is impossible to foresee, he returned home from the club (where he was accustomed to read the papers and discuss politics with the inhabitants of the place) two hours later than usual. His wife supposed him to be at home, in bed and asleep.
But the in¬vasion of France had been the subject of a most animated discussion; the billiard-match had been exciting, he had lost forty francs, an enor¬mous sum for Vendome, where every one hoards, and where manners are restricted within the limits of a praiseworthy modesty, which perhaps is the source of the true happiness that no Parisian covets. For some time past Monsieur de Merret had been satisfied to ask Ro¬salie if his wife had gone to bed; and on her reply, which was always in the affirmative, had immediately gained his own room with the good temper engendered by habit and confidence.
On entering his house, he took it into his head to go and tell his wife of his misadventure, perhaps by way of consolation. At dinner he found Madame de Merret most coquettishly attired. On his way to the club it had occurred to him that his wife was restored to health, and that her convalescence had added to her beauty. He was, as husbands are wont to be, some¬what slow in making this discovery. Instead of calling Rosalie, who was occupied just then in watching the cook and coachman play a difficult hand at brisque, Monsieur de Merret went to his wife`s room by the light of a lantern that he deposited on the first step of the staircase.
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