a very stupid man," he said during the dance
in the last act of "Guillaume Tell." "Am I not right to keep, as the
saying is, to my own specialty?"

"In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
world, but you are perhaps Polish."

"Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
household--it is all I am good for."

"Tartufe! pooh!" cried Adam, laughing. "My dear, he is full of ardor;
he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any
salon. Clementine, don't believe his modesty."

"Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will take
the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you."

Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.

"What a bear!" she said to the count. "You are a great deal nicer."

Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.

"Poor, dear Thaddeus," he said, "he is trying to make himself
disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I."

"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some _calculation_ in
his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman."

Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out "Gate!" and
the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to her
husband, "Where does the captain perch?"

"Why, there!" replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the porte-cochere
which had one window looking on the street. "His apartments are over the
coachhouse."

"Who lives on the other side?" asked the countess.

"No one as yet," said Adam; "I mean that apartment for our children and
their instructors."

"He didn't go to bed," said the countess, observing lights in Thaddeus's
rooms when the carriage had passed under the portico supported by
columns copied from those of the Tuileries, which replaced a vulgar zinc
awning painted in stripes like cloth.

The captain, in his dressing-gown with a pipe in his mouth, was watching
Clementine as she entered the vestibule. The day had been a hard one for
him. And here is the reason why: A great and terrible emotion had taken
possession of his heart on the day when Adam made him go to the Opera
to see and give his opinion on Mademoiselle du Rouvre; and again when he
saw her on the occasion of her marriage, and recognized in her the woman
whom a man is forced to love exclusively. For this reason Paz strongly
advised and promoted the long journey to Italy and elsewhere after the
marriage.