He enjoyed himself there. The clash of rival ambitions among
the middle classes, and the display of their follies, had become an
extremely amusing spectacle to him. He shuddered at the thought of again
shutting himself in the little room which he owed to the beneficence of
the Count de Valqueyras. With a kind of malicious delight, he kept to
himself the conviction that the Bourbons' hour had not yet arrived. He
feigned blindness, working as hitherto for the triumph of Legitimacy,
and still remaining at the orders of the clergy and nobility, though
from the very first day he had penetrated Pierre's new course of action,
and believed that Felicite was his accomplice.
One evening, being the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone
in the drawing-room. "Well! little one," he asked, with his smiling
familiarity, "are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do you
make such mysteries with me?"
"I'm not hiding anything from you," Felicite replied, somewhat
perplexed.
"Come, do you think you can deceive an old fox like me, eh? My dear
child, treat me as a friend. I'm quite ready to help you secretly. Come
now, be frank!"
A bright idea struck Felicite. She had nothing to tell; but perhaps she
might find out something if she kept quiet.
"Why do you smile?" Monsieur de Carnavant resumed. "That's the beginning
of a confession, you know. I suspected that you must be behind your
husband. Pierre is too stupid to invent the pretty treason you are
hatching.
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