my dear fellow, do not wholly despise this society at which
you rail so bitterly."

Bertin smiled.

"I? I love it!" he declared.

"But then----"

"I despise myself a little, as a mongrel of doubtful race."

"All that sort of talk is nothing but a pose," said the Duchess.

And, as he denied having any intention of posing, she cut short the
discussion by declaring that all artists try to make people believe that
chalk is cheese.

The conversation then became general, touching upon everything, ordinary
and pleasant, friendly and critical, and, as the dinner was drawing
toward its end, the Countess suddenly exclaimed, pointing to the full
glasses of wine that were ranged before her plate:

"Well, you see that I have drunk nothing, nothing, not a drop! We shall
see whether I shall not grow thin!"

The Duchess, furious, tried to make her swallow some mineral water, but
in vain; then she exclaimed:

"Oh, the little simpleton! That daughter of hers will turn her head. I
beg of you, Guilleroy, prevent your wife from committing this folly."

The Count, who was explaining to Musadieu the system of a
threshing-machine invented in America, had not been listening.

"What folly, Duchess?"

"The folly of wishing to grow thin."

The Count looked at his wife with an expression of kindly indifference.

"I never have formed the habit of opposing her," he replied.

The Countess had risen, taking the arm of her neighbor; the Count
offered his to the Duchess, and they passed into the large drawing-room,
the boudoir at the end being reserved for use in the daytime.

It was a vast and well lighted room. On the four walls the large and
beautiful panels of pale blue silk, of antique pattern, framed in white
and gold, took on under the light of the lamps and the chandelier a
moonlight softness and brightness. In the center of the principal one,
the portrait of the Countess by Olivier Bertin seemed to inhabit, to
animate the apartment. It had a look of being at home there, mingling
with the air of the salon its youthful smile, the grace of its pose, the
bright charm of its golden hair. It had become almost a custom, a sort
of polite ceremony, like making the sign of the cross on entering a
church, to compliment the model on the work of the painter whenever
anyone stood before it.

Musadieu never failed to do this. His opinion as a connoisseur
commissioned by the State having the value of that of an official
expert, he regard