he thought proper to exaggerate his affected contempt of life and
his spurious misanthropy. Still, his eyes could flash with fire like
a volcano supposed to be extinct, and he endeavored, by dressing
fashionably, to make up for the lack of youth that might strike a
woman's eye.

Horace Bianchon, who wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, was fat and
burly, as beseems a fashionable physician, with a patriarchal air, his
hair thick and long, a prominent brow, the frame of a hard worker, and
the calm expression of a philosopher. This somewhat prosaic personality
set off his more frivolous companion to advantage.

The two great men remained unrecognized during a whole morning at the
inn where they had put up, and it was only by chance that Monsieur de
Clagny heard of their arrival. Madame de la Baudraye, in despair at
this, despatched Gatien Boirouge, who had no vineyards, to beg the two
gentlemen to spend a few days at the Chateau d'Anzy. For the last
year Dinah had played the chatelaine, and spent the winter only at La
Baudraye. Monsieur Gravier, the Public Prosecutor, the Presiding Judge,
and Gatien Boirouge combined to give a banquet to the great men, to meet
the literary personages of the town.

On hearing that the beautiful Madame de la Baudraye was Jan Diaz,
the Parisians went to spend three days at Anzy, fetched in a sort of
wagonette driven by Gatien himself. The young man, under a genuine
illusion, spoke of Madame de la Baudraye not only as the handsomest
woman in those parts, a woman so superior that she might give George
Sand a qualm, but as a woman who would produce a great sensation in
Paris. Hence the extreme though suppressed astonishment of Doctor
Bianchon and the waggish journalist when they beheld, on the garden
steps of Anzy, a lady dressed in thin black cashmere with a deep tucker,
in effect like a riding-habit cut short, for they quite understood the
pretentiousness of such extreme simplicity. Dinah also wore a black
velvet cap, like that in the portrait of Raphael, and below it her hair
fell in thick curls. This attire showed off a rather pretty figure, fine
eyes, and handsome eyelids somewhat faded by the weariful life that has
been described. In Le Berry the singularity of this _artistic_ costume
was a cloak for the romantic affectations of the Superior Woman.

On seeing the affectations of their too amiable hostess--which were,
indeed, affectations of soul and mind--the friends glanced at e