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Mme du Joncquoy was saying: "I was willing to grant you that Monsieur de Bismarck was perhaps a witty man. Only, if you go as far as to talk of genius " The ladies had come round again to their earliest topic of conversation. "What the deuce! Still Monsieur de Bismarck!" muttered Fauchery. "This time I make my escape for good and all."
Mme du Joncquoy demurred; Mme Chantereau knew for certain that a marriage had been projected but that matters had gone no further; the men even ventured to give their opinions. For some minutes the conversation was a babel of opinions, in which the divers elements of the circle, whether Bonapartist or Legitimist or merely worldly and skeptical, appeared to jostle one another simultaneously.
You get rewarded. By the by, who pays the piper tomorrow?" The journalist made a slight outward movement with his arms, as though he would intimate that no one had ever been able to find out. But Vandeuvres called to Steiner, who knew M. de Bismarck. Mme du Joncquoy had almost convinced herself of the truth of her suppositions; she concluded with these words: "He gave me an unpleasant impression.
They felt out of their element they were dazzled and they formed a little group amid the slowly invading mob. Mme du Joncquoy, unable to recognize the various rooms, had come in through the dining saloon. Mme Chantereau was gazing with a stupefied expression at the garden, which struck her as immense.
Count Muffat and the Marquis de Chouard were joining in the conversation, while the good Mme Hugon was falling asleep open-eyed. Lost among the petticoats, M. Venot was his own small self again and smiled as of old. Twelve struck slowly in the great solemn room. "What what do you mean?" Mme du Joncquoy resumed. "You imagine that Monsieur de Bismarck will make war on us and beat us!
"You see, it's my old corner." "You know him?" queried Mme du Joncquoy, when Daguenet had gone. "Certainly I do a charming young man. Georges is very fond of him. Oh, they're a most respected family." And the good lady defended him against the mute hostility which was apparent to her. His father, held in high esteem by Louis Philippe, had been a PREFET up to the time of his death.
On such occasions one expects the party will number twenty, and you're really thirty." Vandeuvres, who was looking at the ladies, passed abruptly to another subject: "She must have been very nice-looking, that Du Joncquoy woman, some fifteen years ago. Poor Estelle has grown lankier than ever. What a nice lath to put into a bed!"
Several ladies had formed a circle round the hearth, and Mme du Joncquoy, whose brother, a diplomat, had just fulfilled a mission in the East, was giving some details about the court of Nazr-ed-Din. "Are you out of sorts, my dear?" asked Mme Chantereau, the wife of an ironmaster, seeing the countess shivering slightly and growing pale as she did so.
"Well," said Mme du Joncquoy, "he ought first to have made it up with his wife." "Doubtless. At this moment I have hopes that the reconciliation will be shortly effected." Whereupon the two old ladies questioned him. But he grew very humble again. "Heaven," he said, "must be left to act."
Presently there was a sound of low voices, and the corner gave vent to all sorts of bitter reflections. "I declare," murmured Mme Chantereau, "just fancy if the countess were to return to life. Why, can you not imagine her coming in among all these crowds of people! And then there's all this gilding and this uproar! It's scandalous!" "Sabine's out of her senses," replied Mme du Joncquoy.
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