"Ah! that's it, is it! then young Tourville is married?"

"Yes, two years ago!"

"He was a disagreeable fellow! Has he made a good marriage?"

"That depends! he married a young lady on the Stock Exchange."

"What do you mean? a young lady on the Stock Exchange?"

"Yes, her father is something there, I believe; he is very, very rich."

"Is it Chaillot, the banker?"

"Perhaps so, I never asked about them--they have restored Tourville, it is superb now; and they are always entertaining."

"Is Madame de Tourville pretty?"

"You will see her; she is very pleasant, and they say she is very intelligent; for my part, I have not discovered that." And then, as M. de Clagny smiled, she added quickly: "Because I only know her very slightly."

"Well, and after the Tourvilles, who next?"

"M. de Bernes."

"Young Hubert, the dragoon?"

"He himself."

"He is the son of good friends of mine; a downright nice fellow, don't you think so?"

"Don't I think what?"

"That Hubert de Bernes is nice?"

"Oh! I know him so slightly; he has always seemed to me--how shall I express it?--insipid, yes, insipid."

"Because you intimidate him, probably? I can quite understand that, too!"

"I intimidate _you_, perhaps?" she said, laughing.

"Very much so!" he answered, very seriously.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, in astonishment, "how is that possible?"

"It is very possible, and it is true! There's nothing astonishing about it then, that if you intimidate an old man like me, you should intimidate poor little Hubert."

"Little Hubert? he is six feet!"

"Yes, and he is twenty-six years old, but to me he is always little Hubert. Well, anyhow, admit at least that he is handsome?"

"I don't know!"

"Are you going to tell me that you have not looked at him?"

"I have looked at him; but as regards M. de Bernes I am a very bad judge."

"Why so?"

"Because I detest young men!"

"At the age of twenty-six they are not so young as all that!"

"That may be so! but, all the same, at that age they do not exist as far as I am concerned."

"Well, well! and at what age do they begin to exist as far as you are concerned?"

She laughed.

"Very late in life!" she said, and then suddenly changing her tone, she continued: "I am glad you know M. de Bernes, because, at any rate, you will not be bored to death now this evening."

"Ah! it appears, then, that I am not to count on the other guests for entertainment?"

"Oh, no! the others--well, first of all there are the La Balues."

"Good heavens, they are alarming! Why, their children must be beginning to grow up?"

"They have even finished growing up! Louis is twenty-three, and Gisele twenty-two."

"What are they like?"

"The one sets up for being _blase_---he is never either hungry, thirsty, or sleepy; he does not care for anything; everything bores him. And it is not true, you know! he never misses a dance, and his sister says that he gets up in the night to eat on the sly. Then, too, he writes ridiculous poetry, paints pictures as absurd as his poetry, and goes in for music--such music!"

"And the daughter?"

"She is as masculine as her brother is effeminate; she goes shooting and hunting, and her dream is to go in for deer-stalking, and to marry an officer."

"She is probably thinking of Hubert?"

"What Hubert?"

"Young Bernes!"

"Ah! But I don't fancy so! At all events, he is not thinking about her--"

"Because he is too much taken up with you, like all the others; is not that so?"

"Not at all!"

M. de Clagny shrugged his shoulders.