s throat, threw
open the huge, folding doors and announced in a stentorian voice:

"Madame la Duchesse douairiere d'Agen!"

IV

M. le Comte de Cambray was at this time close on sixty years of age, and
the hardships which he had endured for close upon a quarter of a century
had left their indelible impress upon his wrinkled, careworn face.

But no one--least of all a younger man--could possibly rival him in
dignity of bearing and gracious condescension of manner. He wore his
clothes after the old-time fashion, and clung to the powdered peruque
which had been the mode at the Tuileries and Versailles before these
vulgar young republicans took to wearing their own hair in its natural
colour.

Now as he advanced from the inner room to meet Mme. la Duchesse, he
seemed a perfect presentation or rather resuscitation of the courtly and
vanished epoch of the Roi Soleil. He held himself very erect and walked
with measured step, and a stereotyped smile upon his lips. He paused
just in front of Mme. la Duchesse, then stopped and lightly touched with
his lips the hand which she held out to him.

"Tell me, Monsieur my brother," said Madame in her loudly-pitched voice,
"do you expect me to make before you my best Versailles curtsey,
for--with my rheumatic knee--I warn you that once I get down, you might
find it very difficult to get me up on my feet again."

"Hush, Sophie," admonished M. le Comte impatiently, "you must try and
subdue your voice a little, we are no longer in Worcester remember--"

But Madame only shrugged her thin shoulders.

"Bah!" she retorted, "there's only good old Hector on the other side of
the door, and you don't imagine you are really throwing dust in _his_
eyes do you? . . . good old Hector with his threadbare livery and his
ill-fed belly. . . ."

"Sophie!" exclaimed M. le Comte who was really vexed this time, "I must
insist. . . ."

"All right, all right my dear Andre. . . . I won't say anything more.
Take me to your audience chamber and I'll try to behave like a lady."

A smile that was distinctly mischievous still hovered round Madame's
lips, but she forced her eyes to look grave: she held out the tips of
her fingers to her brother and allowed him to lead her in the correct
manner into the next room.

Here M. le Comte invited her to sit in an upright chair which was placed
at a convenient angle close to his bureau while he himself sat upon a
stately throne-like armchair, one shapely knee be