hich follow.

One old receipt for popularity, "Put your characters up several steps in
society," M. Ohnet has faithfully obeyed. We begin with a marquis
unintentionally poaching on the ironmaster's ground, and (rather oddly)
accepting game which he has _not_ shot thereon. We end with the
marquis's sister putting her dainty fingers before the mouth of a duke's
exploding pistol--to the not surprising damage of those digits, but with
the result of happiness ever afterwards for the respectable characters
of the book. There is a great deal of gambling, though, unfortunately
told in a rather uninteresting manner of _recit_, which is a pity, for
gambling can be made excellent in fiction.[544] There are several of M.
Ohnet's favourite inventories, and a baroness--not a bad baroness--who
has frequented sales, and knows all about _bric-a-brac_. Also there are
several exciting situations, even before we come to the application of a
lady's fingers as tompions. M. Ohnet is, it has been said, rather good
at situations. But situations, to speak frankly, are rather things for
the stage than for the story, except very rarely, and of a very
striking--which does not mean melodramatic--kind. And it is very
important, off the stage, that they should be led up to, and acted in
by, vigorously drawn and well filled in characters.

To do M. Ohnet justice, he has attempted to meet this requirement in one
instance at least, the one instance by which the book has to stand or
fall. Some of the minor personages (like Marechal in _Serge Panine_) are
fair enough; and the little baroness who, arriving at a country-house in
a whirl of travel and baggage, cries, "Ou est mon mari? Est-ce que j'ai
_deja_ egare mon mari?" puts one, for the moment, in quite a good
temper. The ironmaster's sister, too, is not a bad sort of girl. He
himself is too much of the virtuous, loyal, amiable, but not weak man of
the people; the marquis is rather null, and the duke, who jilts his
cousin Claire de Beaulieu, gambles, marries a rich and detestable
daughter of a chocolate-man, and finally fires through Claire's fingers,
is very much, to use our old phrase, _a la douzaine_. But Claire might
save the book, and probably does so for those who like it. To me she
seems quite wrongly put together. The novel has been so very widely
read, in the original and in translations, that it is perhaps
unnecessary to waste space on a full analysis of its central scene--a
thing not to be do