fortune had consecrated this mean and
smutty urchin. He stood now worshipped in the awful glory of his
millions, pedestalled on his money-bags, gilded from head to heel; and
what could the proudest noblesse upon earth do but forget and forgive
the rags and hunger of his infancy, and come together, from the east and
from the west, to drink of the cup of his enchantments, and cry, "Long
live King Solomon in all his glory?"

"She is beautiful as a divinity," exclaimed the gallant old Marquess de
Fauteuil, who had just completed an admiring survey of the fair Madame
le Prun.

"Pretty--yes; but she has the manners of a _petite moine_," said the
Duchess de la Cominade, an old flame of the marquis, who, in spite of
her marriage and her mistakes, conceived her claims upon his devotions
unabated.

"And her little gossip, too, Le Prun's niece, is a charming creature--an
exquisitely contrived contrast. By my word, this place deserves its
name--is it not truly the Chateau des Anges?"

"Who is that young person whom Le Prun is leading towards them? He is
the only man I have seen to-night whose dress is perfect; and he looks
like a hero of romance."

"That?--eh? Why that is the Marquis de Secqville."

"What! the horrid man who enslaves us all? I have not seen him for
years--how very handsome he is!"

"Yes; and I fancy that melancholy air assists him very much in
vanquishing the gentle sex. I once had a little vein of that myself."

"So you had," murmured the duchess, with a tender smile of memory, and a
little sigh. "But is it not a madness of poor Le Prun to present that
terrible man to his handsome young wife?"

"He is to marry the niece--the affair is concluded. Poor little thing!
she looks so frightened; see--a little fluttered pigeon of Venus--it
becomes her very much."

Meanwhile Le Prun and the marquis were approaching Lucille and Julie,
who were seated together close to a window which opened to the floor,
and admitted the soft summer air, charged with such sounds and perfumes
as might have hovered among the evergreen groves of Calypso's island.

"He is coming," said Julie, "he is coming with my uncle."

"Who?" asked Lucille, looking coldly on the advancing figures.

"My--my fiance, the Marquis de Secqville," whispered Julie, in trembling
haste, blushing, and dropping her eyes.

"Oh, then, I must observe him carefully," said Lucille, with an arch
smile.

"Do, and tell me honestly what you think of him."