She did not complete her sentence and Georges replied: “Yes, he is very pleasant, I think we shall understand each other well.”
“You do not know,” she said, “that we have work to do to-night before retiring. I did not have time to tell you before dinner, for Vaudrec came. Laroche-Mathieu brought me important news of Morocco. We must make a fine article of that. Let us set to work at once. Come, take the lamp.”
He carried the lamp and they entered the study. Madeleine leaned, against the mantelpiece, and having lighted a cigarette, told him the news and gave him her plan of the article. He listened attentively, making notes as she spoke, and when she had finished he raised objections, took up the question and, in his turn, developed another plan. His wife ceased smoking, for her interest was aroused in following Georges’s line of thought. From time to time she murmured: “Yes, yes; very good — excellent — very forcible —” And when he had finished speaking, she said: “Now let us write.”
It was always difficult for him to make a beginning and she would lean over his shoulder and whisper the phrases in his ear, then he would add a few lines; when their article was completed, Georges re- read it. Both he and Madeleine pronounced it admirable and kissed one another with passionate admiration.
The article appeared with the signature of “G. du Roy de Cantel,” and made a great sensation. M. Walter congratulated the author, who soon became celebrated in political circles. His wife, too, surprised him by the ingenuousness of her mind, the cleverness of her wit, and the number of her acquaintances. At almost any time upon returning home he found in his salon a senator, a deputy, a magistrate, or a general, who treated Madeleine with grave familiarity.
Deputy Laroche-Mathieu, who dined at Rue Fontaine every Tuesday, was one of the largest stockholders of M. Walter’s paper and the latter’s colleague and associate in many business transactions. Du Roy hoped, later on, that some of the benefits promised by him to Forestier might fall to his share. They would be given to Madeleine’s new husband — that was all — nothing was changed; even his associates sometimes called him Forestier, and it made Du Roy furious at the dead. He grew to hate the very name; it was to him almost an insult. Even at home the obsession continued; the entire house reminded him of Charles.
One evening Du Roy, who liked sweetmeats, asked:
“Why do we never have sweets?”
His wife replied pleasantly: “I never think of it, because Charles disliked them.”
He interrupted her with an impatient gesture: “Do you know I am getting tired of Charles? It is Charles here, Charles there, Charles liked this, Charles liked that. Since Charles is dead, let him rest in peace.”
Madeleine ascribed her husband’s burst of ill humor to puerile jealousy, but she was flattered and did not reply. On retiring, haunted by the same thought, he asked:
“Did Charles wear a cotton nightcap to keep the draft out of his ears?”
She replied pleasantly: “No, a lace one!”
Georges shrugged his shoulders and said scornfully: “What a bird!”
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