CHAPTER XI.
That day Bouthemont was the first to arrive at Madame Desforges's four o'clock tea. Still alone in her large Louis XVI. drawing-room, the brasses and brocatelle of which shone out with a clear gaiety, the latter rose with an air of impatience, saying, "Well?"
"Well," replied the young man, "when I told him I should doubtless call on you he formally promised me to come."
"You made him thoroughly understand that I counted on the baron today?" "Certainly. That's what appeared to decide him."
They were speaking of Mouret, who the year before had suddenly taken such a liking to Bouthemont that he had admitted him to share his pleasures, and had even introduced him to Henriette, glad to have an agreeable fellow always at hand to enliven an intimacy of which he was getting tired.
