be more fitting to discourse
of the present. My son is expected every instant, and--"

"No," said Clotilde, interrupting him, "I have the key of the little
door of the conservatory, and his arrival is always announced by a ring
of the bell when he returns by the principal entrance; and at that sound
I shall disappear as mysteriously as I arrived, and will leave you to
all your pleasure, at again seeing Florestan. What a delightful surprise
you will give him! For it is so long since you forsook him. Really, now
I think of it, it is I who have to reproach you."

"Me? Reproach me?"

"Assuredly. What guide, what aid had he, when he entered on the world?
whilst there are a thousand things for which a father's counsels are
indispensable. So, really and truly, it is very wrong of you--"

Here Madame de Lucenay, yielding to the whimsicality of her character,
could not help laughing most heartily, and saying to the comte:

"It must be owned that our position is at least an odd one, and that it
is very funny that it should be I who am sermonising you."

"Why, it does seem very strange to me, I assure you; but I deserve
neither your sermons nor your praises. I have come to my son's house,
but not for my son's sake. At his age, he has not, or has no longer, any
need of my advice."

"What do you mean?"

"You ought to know the reason for which I hold the world, and Paris,
especially, in such horror," said the comte, with a painful and
distressing expression; "and you may therefore believe that nothing but
circumstances of the utmost importance could have induced me to leave
Angers and have come hither--to this house. But I have been forced to
overcome my repugnance, and have recourse to everybody who could aid or
help me in a search which is most interesting to me."

"Oh, then," said Madame de Lucenay, with affectionate eagerness, "I beg
you will make use of me; dispose of me in any way in which I can be
useful to you. Do you want any interest? Because De Lucenay must have
some degree of influence; for, the days when I go to dine with my
great-aunt, De Montbrison, he entertains the deputies; and men don't do
that without some motives; and the trouble ought to be recompensed by
some contingent advantages, such as a certain amount of influence over
persons, who, in their turn, have a great deal of interest. So, I
repeat, if we can assist you, rely on us. Then there is my cousin, the
young Duke de Montbrison, who, being a pee