he will marry the other. Forty-five, she is, Mrs.
Maranne, and not a shilling. You should see how afraid she is of being
left in the lurch. Whether he marries her or whether he does not marry
her--kss, kss--we shall have a good laugh."

And the more drink he was given, the more he told us about her, speaking
of his unfortunate mistress as though she were the lowest of the low.
For my own part, I confess that she interested me, this false Mme.
Jenkins, who goes about weeping in every corner, implores her lover
as though he were the executioner, and runs the chance of being thrown
overboard altogether, when all society believes her to be married,
respectable, and established in life. The others only laughed over the
story, the women especially. Dame! it is amusing when one is in service
to see that the ladies of the upper ten have their troubles also and
torments that keep them awake at night.

Our festal board at this stage presented the most lively aspect, a
circle of gay faces stretched towards this Irishman whose story was
adjudged to have won the prize. The fact excited envy; the rest sought
and hunted through their memories for whatever they might hold in the
way of old scandals, adventures of deceived husbands, of those intimate
privacies which are emptied on the kitchen-table along with the scraps
from the plates and the dregs from the bottles. The champagne was
beginning to claim its own among the guests. Joey wanted to dance a jig
on the table-cloth. The ladies, at the least word that was a little gay,
threw themselves back with the piercing laughter of people who are being
tickled, allowing their embroidered skirts to trail beneath the table,
loaded with the remains of the food and covered with spilt grease. M.
Louis had discreetly retired. Glasses were filled up before they had
been emptied; one of the housekeepers dipped a handkerchief in hers,
filled with water, and bathed her forehead with it, because her head was
swimming, she said. It was time that the festivity should end; and,
in fact, an electric bell ringing in the corridor warned us that the
footman, on duty at the theatre, had come to summon the coachmen.
Thereupon Monpavon proposed the health of the master of the house,
thanking him for his little party. M. Noel announced that he proposed
to give another at Saint-Romans, in honour of the visit of the Bey, to
which most of those present would probably be invited. And I was about
to rise in my turn