k among his comrades.

'It's our new adjutant-general, _parbleu!_' said he, 'and he caught me
staring in at his pretty wife.'

'Colonel Mahon!' said another, laughing. 'I wish you joy of your
gallantry, Merode.' 'And, worse still,' broke in a third, 'she is not
his wife. She never could obtain the divorce to allow her to marry
again. Some said it was the husband--a Dutchman, I believe--refused it;
but the simple truth is, she never wished it herself.'

'How not wish it?' remarked three or four in a breath.

'Why should she? Has she not every advantage the position could give
her, and her liberty into the bargain? If we were back again in the old
days of the Monarchy, I agree with you she could not go to Court; she
would receive no invitations to the _petits soupers_ of the Trianon, nor
be asked to join the discreet hunting-parties at Fontainebleau; but we
live in less polished days; and if we have little virtue, we have less
hypocrisy.'

'_Voila!_' cried another; 'only I, for one, would never believe that we
are a jot more wicked or more dissolute than those powdered and perfumed
scoundrels that played courtier in the king's bedchamber.'

'There, they are getting out, at the "Tour d'Argent!"' cried another.
'She is a splendid figure, and what magnificence in her dress!'

'Mahon waits on her like a lackey,' muttered a grim old lieutenant of
infantry.

'Rather like a well-born cavalier, I should say,' interposed a young
hussar. 'His manner is all that it ought to be--full of devotion and
respect.'

'Bah!' said the former; 'a soldier's wife, or a soldier's mistress--for
it's all one--should know how to climb up to her place on the
baggage-waggon, without three lazy rascals to catch her sleeve or her
petticoats for her.'

'Mahon is as gallant a soldier as any in this army,' said the hussar;
'and I'd not be in the man's coat who disparaged him in anything.'

'By St. Denis!' broke in another, 'he's not more brave than he is
fortunate. Let me tell you, it's no slight luck to chance upon so lovely
a woman as that, with such an immense fortune, too.'

'Is she rich?'

'Enormously rich. He has nothing. An _emigre_ of good family, I believe,
but without a sou; and see how he travels yonder!'

While this conversation was going forward, the new arrivals had alighted
at the chief inn of the town, and were being installed in the principal
suite of rooms, which opened on a balcony over the 'Place.' The active
preparati