eyes of the
country the ground lost by their fathers. It isn't by smoking cigars,
playing whist, idling away their leisure, and saying insolent things
of parvenus who have driven them from their positions, not yet by
separating themselves from the masses whose soul and intellect and
providence they ought to be, that the nobility will exist. Instead of
being a party, you will soon be a mere opinion, as de Marsay said. Ah!
if you only knew how my ideas on this subject have enlarged since I have
nursed and cradled your child! I'd like to see that grand old name of
Guenic become once more historical!" Then suddenly plunging her eyes
into those of Calyste, who was listening to her with a pensive air, she
added: "Admit that the first note you ever wrote me was rather stiff."

"I did not think of sending you word till I got to the club."

"But you wrote on a woman's note-paper; it had a perfume of feminine
elegance."

"Those club directors are such dandies!"

The Vicomte de Portenduere and his wife, formerly Mademoiselle Mirouet,
had become of late very intimate with the du Guenics, so intimate that
they shared their box at the Opera by equal payments. The two young
women, Ursula and Sabine, had been won to this friendship by the
delightful interchange of counsels, cares, and confidences apropos of
their first infants.

While Calyste, a novice in falsehood, was saying to himself, "I must
warn Savinien," Sabine was thinking, "I am sure that paper bore a
coronet." This reflection passed through her mind like a flash, and
Sabine scolded herself for having made it. Nevertheless, she resolved
to find the paper, which in the midst of her terrors of the night before
she had flung into her letter-box.

After breakfast Calyste went out, saying to his wife that he should soon
return. Then he jumped into one of those little low carriages with one
horse which were just beginning to supersede the inconvenient cabriolet
of our ancestors. He drove in a few minutes to the vicomte's house and
begged him to do him the service, with rights of return, of fibbing in
case Sabine should question the vicomtesse. Thence Calyste, urging his
coachman to speed, rushed to the rue de Chartres in order to know how
Beatrix had passed the rest of the night. He found that unfortunate just
from her bath, fresh, embellished, and breakfasting with a very good
appetite. He admired the grace with which his angel ate her boiled eggs,
and he marvelled at the