that the Duchess had
been among them.

"The house is saved," began Chesnel, "but after this shock it will take
a hundred years to rise again. The debts must be paid now; you must
marry an heiress, M. le Comte, there is nothing left for you to do."

"And take her where you may find her," said the Duchess.

"A second mesalliance!" exclaimed Mlle. Armande.

The Duchess began to laugh.

"It is better to marry than to die," she said. As she spoke she drew
from her waistcoat pocket a tiny crystal phial that came from the court
apothecary.

Mlle. Armande shrank away in horror. Old Chesnel took the fair
Maufrigneuse's hand, and kissed it without permission.

"Are you all out of your minds here?" continued the Duchess. "Do you
really expect to live in the fifteenth century when the rest of the
world has reached the nineteenth? My dear children, there is no noblesse
nowadays; there is no aristocracy left! Napoleon's Code Civil made an
end of the parchments, exactly as cannon made an end of feudal castles.
When you have some money, you will be very much more of nobles than you
are now. Marry anybody you please, Victurnien, you will raise your wife
to your rank; that is the most substantial privilege left to the
French noblesse. Did not M. de Talleyrand marry Mme. Grandt without
compromising his position? Remember that Louis XIV. took the Widow
Scarron for his wife."

"He did not marry her for her money," interposed Mlle. Armande.

"If the Comtesse d'Esgrignon were one du Croisier's niece, for instance,
would you receive her?" asked Chesnel.

"Perhaps," replied the Duchess; "but the King, beyond all doubt, would
be very glad to see her.--So you do not know what is going on in the
world?" continued she, seeing the amazement in their faces. "Victurnien
has been in Paris; he knows how things go there. We had more influence
under Napoleon. Marry Mlle. Duval, Victurnien; she will be just as much
Marquise d'Esgrignon as I am Duchesse de Maufrigneuse."

"All is lost--even honor!" said the Chevalier, with a wave of the hand.

"Good-bye, Victurnien," said the Duchess, kissing her lover on the
forehead; "we shall not see each other again. Live on your lands; that
is the best thing for you to do; the air of Paris is not at all good for
you."

"Diane!" the young Count cried despairingly.

"Monsieur, you forget yourself strangely," the Duchess retorted coolly,
as she laid aside her role of man and mistress, and became not mere