d come specially from Paris. We were spared Yolande
and Marie, who usually sit up to dinner with their German _bonne_, and
eat everything that they shouldn't, and then scream in the night.

There was a buzz of conversation, and the Vicomte talked to me, but I
could not help hearing what the Marquis said to Victorine--

"Vous aimez la bicyclette, mademoiselle?"

"Oui, monsieur."

"Moi j'aime mieux l'automobile."

"Mais il y a toujours de la poussiere!"

And they are going to be married in a month!

The Vicomte kept bending over me and looking silly, and the Marquis
fidgeted so that he could not go on talking to Victorine--one eye was
always fixed on us. That seemed to please the Vicomte, for he got more
and more _empresse_, and I could not help laughing in return. At dinner
he took in Mme. de Vermandoise, but sat next me, and on my other hand
was one of the cousins, a harmless idiot too timid to speak much, and
with all kinds of horrid baby fluffs growing on his face. If men are to
wear beards (which I should forbid if I were the Queen) they ought to
be shut up till they are really grown.

[Sidenote: _A Contretemps_]

Opposite to us were Victorine and the Marquis, and Godmamma and the
Baron, and Jean and the Marquis's mother. They did look a dull lot, and
the Marquis's mother eats worst of all! We had the greatest fun at our
side, Mme. de Vermandoise was delicious with gaiety, the Comte was on
her other hand, and we four never stopped joking and laughing the whole
of dinner. It was such a big party, so the conversation could not be
quite as general as usual.

The Marquis got gloomier and gloomier as time went on. I could not look
up that I did not find his angry eyes fixed on me. Even Victorine's
aggressive joy at having caught him was damped when she could not get
him to pay attention to what she was saying. At last when he was
straining his ears to try and hear my conversation with the Vicomte,
she got absolutely exasperated with him, and addressed a question to
him in a loud, sharp voice. It made him jump so that he bounced round
in his seat; and as she had lowered her head to put the piece of
_becassine_--which had been poised on her fork while she spoke--into
her mouth, his jumping round, and her raising her head suddenly, made
her daisies catch on his beard; and you never saw such a funny sight,
Mamma! It was a nasty little wired dewdrop that got fixed in poor
Monsieur de Beaupre's fur, and there they w