Irish language," retorted the
man from Dublin.

They both used the contested tongue, and were evidently the only ones
in the room who did. All about them were the softened syllables of
France--so provocative, according to Lord Lytton, of the tender
sentiments, if not of the tender passion.

"There is Dumaresque, now," remarked Delaven. "We are to see his new
picture, you know, at the Marquise de Caron's;--excuse me a moment,"
and he crossed over to the artist, who had just entered.

Kenneth McVeigh stood alone surveying the strange faces about. He had
not been in France long enough to be impervious to the atmosphere of
novelty in everything seen and heard.

Back of him the soft voice of Madame Choudey, the hostess, could be
heard. She was frankly gossiping and laughing a little. The name of
the Marquise de Caron was mentioned. Delaven had told him of her--an
aristocrat and an eccentric--a philanthropist who was now aged. For
years herself and her son had been the patrons--the good angels of
struggling genius, of art in every form. But the infamous 2d of
December had ended all that. He was one of the "provisionally exiled;"
he had died in Rome. Madame La Marquise, the dowager Marquise now, was
receiving again, said the gossips back of him. The fact was commented
on with wonder by Madame Choudey;--with wonder, frank queries, and
wild surmises, by the little group around her; for the aged Marquise
and her son Alain--dead a year since--had been picturesque figures in
their own circle where politics and art, literature and religion, met
and crossed swords, or played piquet! And now she was coming back, not
only to Paris, but to society; had in fact, arrived, and the card
Madame Choudey held in her white dimpled hand announced the first
reception at the Caron establishment.

"After years of the country and Rome!" and Sidonie Merson raised her
infantile brows and smiled.

"Oh, yes, it is quite true--though so strange; we fancied her settled
for life in her old vine-covered villa; no one expected to see the
Paris house opened after Alain's death."

"It is always the unexpected in which the old Marquise delights," said
big Lavergne, the sculptor, who had joined Sidonie in the window.

"Then how she must have reveled in Alain's marriage--a death-bed
marriage!"

"Yes; and to an Italian girl without a dot."

"Oh--it is quite possible. The marriage was in Rome. Both the English
and Americans go to Rome."

"Italian! I