by consideration for another lady--the sweetest and the best--who
would be the last I should care to have hear any ill of me, even in a
libel."

A protest rose to Montaiglon's throat; a fury stirred him at the
gaucherie that should bring Olivia's name upon the top of such a
subject. He could not trust himself to speak with calmness, and it was
to his great relief the Chamberlain changed the topic--broadened it, at
least, and spoke of women in the general, almost cheerfully, as if
he delighted to put an unpleasant topic behind him. It was done so
adroitly, too, that Count Victor was compelled to believe it prompted
by a courteous desire on the part of the Chamberlain not too vividly to
illuminate his happiness in the affection of Olivia.

"I'm an older man than you, M. Montaiglon," said the Chamberlain, "and I
may be allowed to give some of my own conclusions upon the fair. I have
known good, ill, and merely middling among them, the cunning and the
simple, the learned and the utterly ignorant, and by the Holy Iron!
honesty and faith are the best virtues in the lot of them. They all like
flattery, I know--"

"A dead man and a stupid woman are the only ones who do not. _Jamais
beau parler riecorcha le langue!_" said Montaiglon.

"Faith, and that's very true," consented the Chamberlain, laughing
softly. "I take it not amiss myself if it's proffered in the right
way--which is to say, for the qualities I know I have, and not for the
imaginary ones. As I was saying, give me the simple heart and honesty;
they're not very rife in our own sex, and--"

"Even there, monsieur, I can be generous enough," said Montaiglon. "I
can always retain my regard for human nature, because I have learned
never to expect too much from it."

"Well said!" cried the Chamberlain. "Do you know that in your manner of
rejoinder you recall one Dumont I met once at the Jesuits' College when
I was in France years ago?"

"Ah, you have passed some time in my country, then?" said the Count with
awakened interest, a little glad of a topic scarce so abstruse as sex.

"I have been in every part of Europe," said the Chamberlain; "and it
must have been by the oddest of mischances I have not been at Cammercy
itself, for well I knew your uncle's friends, though, as it happened, we
were of a different complexion of politics. I lived for months one
time in the Hotel de Transylvania, Rue Conde, and kept my _carosse de
remise_, and gambled like every other ass