"No," she
rejoined, "she was unable. She had something to try on at her
dressmaker's. We stopped too long at the Exposition du Lis, and she
requested us to set her down at Salmon's door on our way here."
It was Camille herself who had skilfully prolonged the visit to the art
show, still hoping to prevent her mother from meeting Gerard. And her
rage arose from the ease with which her mother had got rid of her, thanks
to that falsehood of having something to try on.
"But," ingenuously said Pierre, "if I went at once to this person Salmon,
I might perhaps be able to send up my card."
Camille gave a shrill laugh, so funny did the idea appear to her. Then
she retorted: "Oh! who knows if you would still find her there? She had
another pressing appointment, and is no doubt already keeping it!"
"Well, then, I will wait for her here. She will surely come to fetch you,
will she not?"
"Fetch us? Oh no! since I tell you that she has other important affairs
to attend to. The carriage will take us home alone, my brother and I."
Increasing bitterness was infecting the girl's pain-fraught irony. Did he
not understand her then, that priest who asked such naive questions which
were like dagger-thrusts in her heart? Yet he must know, since everybody
knew the truth.
"Ah! how worried I am," Pierre resumed, so grieved indeed that tears
almost came to his eyes. "It's still on account of that poor man about
whom I have been busying myself since this morning.
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