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 that we should cut each other's throats before
breakfast to-morrow? Bourgeois! why not grocer? I am an artist--don't you
know that by this time?"

"Don't get angry, my dear fellow; I m