He spoke to her imperiously, with pale lips and a disagreeable
expression in his eye; then recovering his self-contained and fleeting
tone, he said:

'Don't trouble any more about it. It is only a crisis to be got through.
I have had plenty before now.'

She held out to him his hat, which he was looking for. As he could get
nothing from her, he would be off. To keep him a few minutes longer,
she began talking of an important business which she had in hand--a
marriage, which she had been asked to arrange.

At the word _marriage_ he started and looked at her askance: 'Who was
it?' She had promised to say nothing at present. But she could not
refuse him. It was the Prince d'Athis.

'Who is the lady?' he asked.

It was her turn now to show him the side view of her crooked nose.

'You do not know the lady. She is a foreigner with a fortune. If I
succeed I might help you. I have made my terms in black and white.'

He smiled, completely reassured.

'And how does the Duchess take it?'

'She knows nothing of it, of course.'

'Her _Sammy_,' Her dear prince! And after fifteen years!'

Madame Astier's gesture expressed the utter carelessness of one woman
for the feelings of another.

'What else could she expect at her age?' said she.

'Why, what is her age?'

'She was born in 1827. We are in 1880. You can do the sum. Just a year
older than myself.'

'The Duchess!' cried Paul, stupefied.

His mother laughed as she said, 'Why, yes, you rude boy! What are you
surprised at? I am sure you thought her twenty years younger. It's a
fact, it seems, that the most experienced of you know nothing about
women. Well, you see, the poor prince could not have her hanging on to
him all his life. Besides, one of these days the old Duke will die, and
then where would he be? Fancy him tied to that old woman!'

'Well,' said Paul, 'so much for your dear friend!' She fired at this.
Her dear friend! The Duchess! A pretty friend! A woman who, with
twenty-five thousand a year--intimate as she was with her, and well
aware of their difficulties--had never so much as thought of helping
them! What was the present of an occasional dress? Or the permission
to choose a bonnet at her milliner's? Presents for use! There was no
pleasure in them.

'Like grandpapa Rehu's on New Year's day,' put in Paul assenting. 'An
atlas, or a globe!'

'Oh, Antonia is, I really think, more stingy still. When we were at
Mousseaux, in the middle of the fruit s