"I should like to be that little young man," said the critic, sitting
down, and taking one end of the hookah. "How he will love!"
"Too much; for then he will not be loved in return," replied
Mademoiselle des Touches. "Madame de Rochefide is coming here," she
added.
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Claude. "With Conti?"
"She will stay here alone, but he accompanies her."
"Have they quarrelled?"
"No."
"Play me a sonata of Beethoven's; I know nothing of the music he wrote
for the piano."
Claude began to fill the tube of the hookah with Turkish tobacco, all
the while examining Camille much more attentively than she observed. A
dreadful thought oppressed him; he fancied he was being used for a
blind by this woman. The situation was a novel one.
Calyste went home thinking no longer of Beatrix de Rochefide and her
letter; he was furious against Claude Vignon for what he considered
the utmost indelicacy, and he pitied poor Felicite. How was it
possible to be beloved by that sublime creature and not adore her on
his knees, not believe her on the faith of a glance or a smile? He
felt a desire to turn and rend that cold, pale spectre of a man.
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