ret's
picture, and about a dozen yards apart, and an electric light was thrown
on to the youngest, who was leaning against a large white target, and
very slowly the other traced his living outline with bullet after
bullet. He aimed with prodigious skill, and the black dots showed on the
cardboard, and marked the shape of his body. The applause drowned the
orchestra, and increased continually, when suddenly a shrill cry of
horror resounded from one end of the hall to the other. The women
fainted, the violins stopped, and the spectators jostled each other. At
the ninth ball, the younger brother had fallen to the ground, an inert
mass, with a gaping wound in his forehead. His brother did not move, and
there was a look of madness on his face, while the Countess de Villegby
leaned on the ledge of her box, and fanned herself calmly, as implacable
as any cruel goddess of ancient mythology.

The next day, between four and five, when she was surrounded by her
usual friends in her little, warm, Japanese drawing room, it was strange
to hear in what a languid and indifferent voice she exclaimed:

"They say that an accident happened to one of those famous clowns, the
Monta ... the Monti ... what is his name, Tom?"

"The Montefiores, Madame!"

And then they began to talk about the sale at Angele Velours, who was
going to buy the former follies, at the hotel Drouot, before marrying
Prince Storbeck.

THE SEQUEL TO A DIVORCE

Certainly, although he had been engaged in the most extraordinary, most
unlikely, most extravagant and funniest cases, and had won legal games
without a trump in his hand, although he had worked out the obscure law
of divorce, as if it had been a Californian gold mine Maitre[4]
Garrulier the celebrated, the only Garrulier, could not check a movement
of surprise, nor a disheartening shake of the head, nor a smile when the
Countess de Baudemont explained her affairs to him for the first time.

[Footnote 4: Title given to advocates in France.--TRANSLATOR.]

He had just opened his correspondence, and his long hands, on which he
bestowed the greatest attention, buried themselves in a heap of female
letters, and one might have thought oneself in the confessional of a
fashionable preacher, so impregnated was the atmosphere with delicate
perfumes.

Immediately, even before she had said a word, with the sharp glance of a
practiced man of the world, that look which made beautiful Madame de
Serpenoise say: