hem, and I wish to know at once by whom."

Rousselet dropped his pose of a Roman senator; passing his hand behind
his ears, a familiar gesture with people when in embarrassing positions,
he continued less emphatically:

"I stopped on my way back at La Fauconnerie, at the 'Femme-sans-Tete
Inn'."

"And what were you doing in a tavern?" interrupted Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil severely. "You know it is not intended that the servants in
this house should frequent taverns and such low places, which are not
respectable and corrupt the morals of the lower classes."

"Servants! lower classes! Old aristocrat!" growled Rousselet secretly;
but, not daring to show his ill humor, he replied in a bland voice:

"If Mademoiselle had gone the same road that I did, with the same
conveyance, she would know that it is a rather thirsty stretch. I
stopped at the 'Femme-sans-Tete' to wash the dust down my parched
throat. Whereupon Mademoiselle Reine--the daughter of Madame Gobillot,
the landlady of the inn--Mademoiselle Reine asked me to allow her to
look at the yellow-journal in which there are fashions for ladies; I
asked her why; she said it was so that she might see how they made their
bonnets, gowns, and other finery in Paris. The frivolity of women!"

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil threw herself back in her chair and gave way
to an access of hilarity in which she rarely indulged.

"Mademoiselle Gobillot reading La Mode! Mademoiselle Gobillot talking
of gowns, shawls, and cashmeres! Clemence, what do you say to that? You
will see, she will be ordering her bonnets from Herbault! Ha! ha! This
is what is called the progress of civilization, the age of light!"

"Mademoiselle Gobillot," said Clemence, fixing a penetrating glance upon
the old man, "was not the only one who looked at La Mode. Was there no
other person in the tavern who saw it?"

"Madame," replied Rousselet, forced from his last refuge, "there were
two young men taking their refection, and one of them wore a beard no
longer than a goat's. Madame will pardon me if I allow myself to use
this vulgar expression, but Madame wished to know all."

"And the other young man?"

"The other had his facial epidermis shaved as close as a lady's or
mine. He was the one who held the journal while his comrade was smoking
outside the door."

Madame de Bergenheim made no further inquiries, but fell into a profound
revery. With eyes fixed upon the last number of La Mode, she seemed to
study