"And it would seem, lieutenant, that you dislodged the poodle, for since then Madame Saint-Edmond is forever at your heels; and as for me, madame questions me and tries to make me talk; she sends for me to come up when she's at breakfast, and as she offers me a little glass of malaga and a biscuit, she asks me where you passed the evening before." "And Monsieur Bertrand, melted by the malaga, recounts my actions to my neighbor, I presume?" "Oh! for shame, lieutenant! What do you take me for? The idea of my betraying my master's secrets! If there had been half a dozen bottles of malaga in front of me, I wouldn't have said a word! To be sure, I don't like malaga." "Bless my soul, my dear Bertrand, I am not scolding you! You know well enough that I make no secret of my follies, even to those who might have ground for complaint. It's a mere matter of an amourette or two, a little fooling." "All the same, lieutenant, I am seriously embarrassed, on my word, being forever questioned by this one and that one. One calls me her little Bertrand, another her true friend--and these ladies are all very attractive----" "Ah! monsieur le caporal has noticed that!" "Parbleu, lieutenant, I have eyes just like other men, and if my heart don't take fire as easily as yours, that don't mean that it's invulnerable. And when I see one of those ladies put her handkerchief to her eyes, when I hear your neighbor throw herself into an armchair and say that she's going to faint; and when Mademoiselle Virginie cries that she _will perish_,--why, I don't know where I am. I run from one to the other, offer them salts and eau-de-vie, tear my hair, and sometimes I even cry with them. Let me tell you that I'd rather assault a fortress six times than be present at one of those scenes, on my honor!" "Ha! ha! ha! Poor Bertrand!" "Of course, you laugh; it don't make any difference to you how much you are called traitor, perfidious villain, savage, monster, cruel wretch!" "Those are terms of endearment; in a young woman's mouth those words mean: 'You are charming, I love you, I adore you!'" "Oho! so 'monster!' means 'you are charming,' does it? That makes a difference, lieutenant; I couldn't be expected to guess that; now I understand. But these tears that you are responsible for--do they also mean that you are considered charming?" "Oh! do you suppose, my old friend, that in love-affairs tears are always sincere?" "In a great flood, lieutenant, there may happen to be one honest one; and it seems to me that a man ought to be sorry for the suffering he causes a pretty girl." "I promise to reform, Bertrand, to be more virtuous in the future! Is it possible that you think that I, who adore that charming sex, I, whose whole happiness depends on making myself attractive to the ladies--that I set about causing them pain?"