This note jotted down on the margin of Anglès’ report, we will return to our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its close.
VI
A Chapter in Which They Adore Each Other
Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke.
Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomyès was drinking. Zéphine was laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he had purchased at Saint-Cloud.
Favorite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said:—
“Blachevelle, I adore you.”
This called forth a question from Blachevelle:—
“What would you do, Favorite, if I were to cease to love you?”
“I!” cried Favorite. “Ah! Do not say that even in jest! If you were to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you arrested.”
Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man who is tickled in his self-love. Favorite resumed:—