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Montessuy rose, placed his hand on the Deputy's shoulder, and said: "My dear Berthier, I have an idea that the Cabinet will fall at the beginning of the session." He approached his daughter. "I have received an odd letter from Le Menil." Therese rose and closed the door that separated the parlor from the billiard-room. She was afraid of draughts, she said.
At the two semicircles, whereby the dinner-table was prolonged, were M. Montessuy, robust, with blue eyes and ruddy complexion; a young cousin, Madame Belleme de Saint-Nom, embarrassed by her long, thin arms; the painter Duviquet; M. Daniel Salomon; then Paul Vence and Garain the deputy; Belleme de Saint-Nom; an unknown senator; and Dechartre, who was dining at the house for the first time.
His son took without trouble his seat in the Chamber of Deputies. Having married Mademoiselle Therese Montessuy, whose dowry supported his political fortune, he appeared discreetly among the four or five bourgeois, titled and wealthy, who rallied to democracy, and were received without much bad grace by the republicans, whom aristocracy flattered.
"But you announce your going to everybody, yet you do not even know whether Madame Marmet can accompany you." "Oh, Madame Marmet will soon pack her boxes. Nothing keeps her in Paris except her dog. She will leave it to you; you may take care of it." "Does your father know of your project?" It was his last resource to invoke the authority of Montessuy.
"But you announce your going to everybody, yet you do not even know whether Madame Marmet can accompany you." "Oh, Madame Marmet will soon pack her boxes. Nothing keeps her in Paris except her dog. She will leave it to you; you may take care of it." "Does your father know of your project?" It was his last resource to invoke the authority of Montessuy.
"A singular letter," continued Montessuy. "Le Menil will not come to Joinville. He has bought the yacht Rosebud. He is on the Mediterranean, and can not live except on the water. It is a pity. He is the only one who knows how to manage a hunt."
These reasons moved her not; but she felt a desire to be agreeable to her husband. She had received the day before a letter from her father, Monsieur Montessuy, who, without sharing the political views of his son-in-law and without giving any advice to his daughter, insinuated that society was beginning to gossip of the Countess Martin's mysterious sojourn at Florence among poets and artists.
He said that he liked bad weather, and that he was to go foxhunting with friends next week." There was a pause; the General continued: "I wish him much joy, but I don't envy him. Foxhunting is not agreeable." "But it is useful," said Montessuy. The General shrugged his shoulders. "Foxes are dangerous for chicken-coops in the spring when the fowls have to feed their families."
"Then you do not know, Monsieur Garain, that one does the same things for very different reasons?" Montessuy said she was right. "It is very true, as you say, Madame, that actions prove nothing.
"Yes," said Montessuy, "it is the Guerric." And, addressing Therese: "You knew the Marquis de Re? At sixty-five he had retained his strength and his youth. He set the fashion and was loved. Young men copied his frockcoat, his monocle, his gestures, his exquisite insolence, his amusing fads. Suddenly he abandoned society, closed his house, sold his stable, ceased to show himself.
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