banker
Liverdy indicated his flames by their first names. He would say: "I was
at that time the best of friends with the wife of a diplomat. Now,
one evening when I was leaving her, I said to her, 'My little
Marguerite'"--then he checked himself, amid the smiles of his fellows,
adding "Ha! I let something slip. One should form a habit of calling all
women Sophie."

Olivier Bertin, very reserved, was accustomed to declare, when
questioned:

"For my part, I content myself with my models."

They pretended to believe him, and Landa, who was frankly a libertine,
grew quite excited at the idea of all the pretty creatures that walked
the streets and all the young persons who posed undraped before the
painter at ten francs an hour.

As the bottle became empty, all these gray-beards, as the younger
members of the club called them, acquired red faces, and their kindling
ardor awakened new desires.

Rocdiane, after the coffee, became still more indiscreet, and forgot the
society women to celebrate the charms of simple cocottes.

"Paris!" said he, a glass of kummel in his hand, "The only city where
a man never grows old, the only one where, at fifty, if he is sound and
well preserved, he will always find a young girl, as pretty as an angel,
to love him."

Landa, finding again his Rocdiane after the liqueurs, applauded him
enthusiastically, and mentioned the young girls who still adored him
every day.

But Liverdy, more skeptical, and pretending to know exactly what women
were worth, murmured: "Yes, they tell you that they adore you!"

"They prove it to me, my dear fellow," exclaimed Landa.

"Such proofs don't count."

"They suffice me!"

"But, _sacrebleu!_ they do mean it," cried Rocdiane. "Do you believe
that a pretty little creature of twenty, who has been going the rounds
in Paris for five or six years already, where all our moustaches have
taught her kisses and spoiled her taste for them, still knows how to
distinguish a man of thirty from a man of sixty? Pshaw! what nonsense!
She has seen and known too many of them. Now, I'll wager that, down in
the bottom of her heart, she actually prefers an old banker to a young
stripling. Does she know or reflect upon that? Have men any age here?
Oh, my dear fellow, we grow young as we grow gray, and the whiter our
hair becomes the more they tell us they love us, the more they show it,
and the more they believe it."

They rose from the table, their blood warmed and lashe