immediately shown to one of the luxurious
private dining-rooms, furnished with four large arm-chairs and a red
plush couch. The head waiter entered and brought them the menu. Paul
handed it to his wife.
"What do you want to eat?"
"I don't care; order whatever is good."
After handing his coat to the waiter, he ordered dinner and champagne.
The waiter looked at the young woman and smiled. He took the order and
murmured:
"Will Monsieur Paul have his champagne sweet or dry?"
"Dry, very dry."
Henriette was pleased to hear that this man knew her husband's name. They
sat on the couch, side by side, and began to eat.
Ten candles lighted the room and were reflected in the mirrors all around
them, which seemed to increase the brilliancy a thousand-fold. Henriette
drank glass after glass in order to keep up her courage, although she
felt dizzy after the first few glasses. Paul, excited by the memories
which returned to him, kept kissing his wife's hands. His eyes were
sparkling.
She was feeling strangely excited in this new place, restless, pleased, a
little guilty, but full of life. Two waiters, serious, silent, accustomed
to seeing and forgetting everything, to entering the room only when it
was necessary and to leaving it when they felt they were intruding, were
silently flitting hither and thither.
Toward the middle of the dinner, Henriette was well under the influence
of champagne. She was prattling along fearlessly, her cheeks flushed, her
eyes glistening.
"Come, Paul; tell me everything."
"What, sweetheart?"
"I don't dare tell you."
"Go on!"
"Have you loved many women before me?"
He hesitated, a little perplexed, not knowing whether he should hide his
adventures or boast of them.
She continued:
"Oh! please tell me. How many have you loved?"
"A few."
"How many?"
"I don't know. How do you expect me to know such things?"
"Haven't you counted them?"
"Of course not."
"Then you must have loved a good many!"
"Perhaps."
"About how many? Just tell me about how many."
"But I don't know, dearest. Some years a good many, and some years only a
few."
"How many a year, did you say?"
"Sometimes twenty or thirty, sometimes only four or five."
"Oh! that makes more than a hundred in all!"
"Yes, just about."
"Oh! I think that is dreadful!"
"Why dreadful?"
"Because it's dreadful when you think of it--all those
women--and always--always the same thing. Oh! it's dr
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