Perhaps Madame de Manerville had taken Vandenesse into the salon where
his wife was talking with Nathan; perhaps he had come there himself to
fetch Marie, and take her home; perhaps his conversation with his
former flame had awakened slumbering griefs; certain it is that when
his wife took his arm to leave the ball-room, she saw that his face
was sad and his look serious. The countess wondered if he was
displeased with her. No sooner were they seated in the carriage than
she turned to Felix and said, with a mischievous smile,--
"Did not I see you talking half the evening with Madame de
Manerville?"
Felix was not out of the tangled paths into which his wife had led him
by this charming little quarrel, when the carriage turned into their
court-yard. This was Marie's first artifice dictated by her new
emotion; and she even took pleasure in triumphing over a man who,
until then, had seemed to her so superior.
CHAPTER V
FLORINE
Between the rue Basse-du-Rempart and the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins,
Raoul had, on the third floor of an ugly and narrow house, in the
Passage Sandrie, a poor enough lodging, cold and bare, where he lived
ostensibly for the general public, for literary neophytes, and for his
creditors, duns, and other annoying persons whom he kept on the
threshold of private life.
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