"I haf not seen if tere vas _mouches_ [flies] at Monsir Sordeville's; but he pe ein sehr bleazant man, sehr--how you say?--he make me much talk; he loafe ven I talk; he say tat I shpeak vell te language."

Frederique's face suddenly changed; her brow grew dark, and her expression was no longer the same. She looked keenly at the baron, saying:

"What did you talk about with Monsieur Sordeville?"

"Ve talk of pizness. As I haf come to France mit der amba.s.sador, he haf question me of bolitics, of te gufernment, of many serious subjects. He pe a brovound man, he haf alvays agree mit me."

Frederique seemed to be lost in thought.

"And this was only the second time that you had been to Monsieur Sordeville's?" she asked, after a moment.

"Ja! id vas te second time. I haf met te monsir at te house of Montame de Granvallon, vere I haf had te bleazure to meet mit you."

"And you did not know Monsieur Sordeville before?"

"Not at all; but he make agwaindance so easy, he vas sehr amiable; his vife, as he tell me, she haf peen much frent mit you."

"Yes, Armantine and I were at the same boarding school; we were friends.

I left the school long before she did; I refused to learn to do anything except fence and ride, and those things were just what they didn't teach there. I would have liked to go to the Polytechnic, and then to Saint-Cyr; to be a soldier, in fact. I held up to my parents the precedent of the Chevalier d'eon, who, although a woman, was cunning enough to lead a man's life for years. But they declared that it would be too great a risk. Parents constantly thwart their children's inclinations like that.--When I met Armantine again, she was married, and we renewed our old friendship. She is good-humored, merry, a little inclined to be capricious, a great flirt, but good at heart. As for her husband--in my opinion, he pays too little attention to his wife; he gives her too much liberty. I don't say that she abuses it, but, you see, you gentlemen are sometimes very gallant, very adventurous! And when the husband is never on the spot, why, it's his own fault if anything happens to him."

"What is this Monsieur Sordeville's business?" I asked Frederique. She did not answer for some time, but at last she said:

"I thought that you knew him?"

"From having met him two or three times at a house where they give b.a.l.l.s and play cards. He talked with me, more or less; he doesn't lack intelligence, he talks well, and possesses the much rarer gift of making others talk. We see so many people in society whose conversational powers consist in interrupting one at every instant, and who do not understand that one may have something better to do than listen to them.

I had some talk with Monsieur Sordeville, as I say; and then I met him again at that wedding party, where you were so kind to me, and where he invited me to his house. But I did not dream of asking him what his profession was. Indeed, if he is rich, he is justified in having none."

"It seems that he has some property; but I have an idea that he speculates on the Bourse. Were you better pleased with him this evening than with--did he make himself agreeable? He received you cordially, I have no doubt; but what did you talk about with him? not his wife, I presume?"

"No; he was discussing serious subjects with an old gentleman who kept blinking, or rather closed his eyes altogether, when he spoke. They got onto politics, and talked thereon a long while."

Frederique was not at all the same woman as our hostess of a few moments earlier. After quite a long silence, during which our lovelorn Prussian continued to drown his heartache in champagne, I touched my neighbor's arm softly, saying:

"You seem to be a long way off. Are you tired? do you wish us to go?"

Frederique raised her head, pa.s.sed her hand across her forehead, and resumed her jovial air.

"Ah! you are right!" she exclaimed; "scold me, my friend. I have fits of musing, sometimes; I fall into a train of thought that is utterly void of sense! It is very wrong in me, for when you are with me is no time for me to have such thoughts. But I don't want you to leave me yet; we get along so well together! Are you inclined to sleep?"

"Oh! no, madame!"

"_Madame_ again! You irritate me! Beware! if you go on in this way, I am no longer your comrade."

"Pray don't say that--Frederique."

"He called me Frederique! that's very lucky for him! What a lot of trouble I had, to bring him to that! Ah! I am very glad I succeeded."

She sprang to her feet and began to waltz about the table; then stopped in front of a mirror over the mantel, and changed the arrangement of her hair once more, this time twisting a red silk handkerchief about her head, _a la_ Creole. Then she went to the baron, took him by the shoulders, and shook him, crying:

"Well! my friend Brunzbrack, you don't open your mouth! Have you gone to sleep?"

The baron raised his head, rubbed his eyes, and tried to open them, as he replied:

"Ach! _zaperlotte!_ gone to shleep, me! ven ich bin mit ein so bretty voman! mit ein voman who turns mein head und mein heart!"

"I don't know whether I have turned your head, but it seemed to me that you were hardly following the conversation."

"Id vas te bibe vich haf make mein head heafy ein leedle pit. But I haf not seen! Mein Gott! how you pe bretty mit tis oder way to do your hair!

I know not vy you like to blay all tese leedle dricks mit your head, als if id haf not peen bretty enough pevore!"

"Herr von Brunzbrack is right," said I, looking at Frederique, to whom the red silk handkerchief gave a saucy, wanton look that changed her completely. "Do you know, my friend, that it is ungenerous to keep changing your coiffure, and to invent such alluring ones? Do you want the poor baron here to die of love?"

"Ha! ha! I'm not afraid of that. I have put on my nightcap; isn't a body at liberty to put on her nightcap? But I don't want you to go to sleep, baron! Come, let's sing and drink and laugh! Oh! I am in a laughing mood to-night!"

"Ja! ja! let's trink und sing!"

"Do you begin, baron; but no love songs, and, above all things, no languorous lamentations. What we want is something lively, a little decollete even. Do men stand on ceremony with one another?"

She filled our gla.s.ses, then threw herself back in her chair, laughing till the tears came, because the baron gazed at her with such a tender expression, that his eyes were invisible and his face resembled an egg-plant.

"Come, baron; we're waiting for you."

"Ach! I must sing te first; und so vill I. Vait, till I remember me some bretty song; I know many--vait. Trum, trum, trum, trideri, tram, tram, tram. _Sapremann!_ So many I know! Vait! Troum, troum, troum, tradera, tradera. Id is sehr--how you say?--astonish! Ich kann nicht te peginning remember. Vait--trim, trim, turlulu, traderi----"

"I'm afraid you are stuck fast, my poor Brunzbrack. While we are waiting for your memory to come back, Rochebrune will sing us something."

"I?"

"To be sure. Well! has this one lost his memory, too? Why, what sort of men are these two, that a gla.s.s of champagne puts their wits to flight?"

"I am perfectly willing to sing; but I know nothing but nonsensical things."

"Sing us a nonsensical thing! I will allow anything that isn't downright bad. Moreover, I am sure that my friend will not sing me anything unseemly."

"On the contrary, I am very unseemly, sometimes."

"In that case, monsieur, keep quiet."

She a.s.sumed a pouting expression, and I hastened to hum a tune, saying:

"This is only a little free."

"Go on, then; I'll let it pa.s.s. Vade, Gallet, Favart. Clever things are never indecent, because if they were they would not be clever."

"I am trying to remember the tune."

"Mon Dieu! how insufferable they are with their tunes! Here, how is this: Tra la la la--tra la la; you can sing any song to that."