enheim,' he said to me, 'is a very popular society
woman, not very pretty, perhaps, rather clever, though, and very
amiable. She is one of our coquettes of the old nobility, and with her
twenty-four carats' virtue she always has two sufferers attached to her
chariot, and a third on the waiting-list, and yet it is impossible for
one to find a word to say against her behavior. Just at this moment,
Mauleon and d'Arzenac compose the team; I do not know who is on the
waiting-list. She will probably spend the winter here with her aunt,
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, one of the hatefullest old women on the
Rue de Varennes. The husband is a good fellow who, since the July
revolution, has lived upon his estates, caring for his forests and
killing wild boars without troubling himself much about his wife.'

"He then told me which houses these ladies frequented, and left me,
saying with a knowing air:

"'Take care, if you intend to try the power of your seductions upon the
little Baroness; whoever meddles with her smarts for it!'

"This information from a viper like Casorans satisfied me in every way.
Evidently the place was not taken; impregnable, that was another thing.

"Before Madame de Bergenheim's return, I began to show myself
assiduously at the houses of which my friend had spoken. My position
in the Faubourg Saint-Germain is peculiar, but good, according to my
opinion. I have enough family ties to be sustained by several should I
be attacked by many, and this is the essential point. It is true that,
thanks to my works, I am regarded as an atheist and a Jacobin; aside
from these two little defects, they think well enough of me. Besides, it
is a notorious fact that I have rejected several offers from the present
government, and refused last year the 'croix d'honneur'; this makes
amends and washes away half my sins. Finally, I have the reputation
of having a certain-knowledge of heraldry, which I owe to my uncle,
a confirmed hunter after genealogical claims. This gains me a respect
which makes me laugh sometimes, when I see people who detest me greet me
as cordially as the Cure of Saint-Eustache greeted Bayle, for fear that
I might destroy their favorite saint. However, in this society, I am
no longer Gerfaut of the Porte-Saint-Martin, but I am the Vicomte de
Gerfaut. Perhaps, with your bourgeois ideas, you do not understand--"

"Bourgeois!" exclaimed Marillac, bounding from his seat, "what are
you talking about? Do you wish