Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Come, de Camps," said Monsieur de l'Estorade; "for if this goes on, I shall be sent to order that child's funeral." "But, my dear husband," said the countess, taking his hand, "you must be ill, to say such dreadful things in that cool way. Where is your usual patience with my little maternal worries, or your exquisite politeness for every one, your wife included?"
While Monsieur de l'Estorade, striding about the room, delivered himself of this philippic, the countess made a despairing sign to Monsieur de Camps, as if to ask him whether he did not see most alarming symptoms in such a scene. In order to cut short the quarrel of which he had been the involuntary cause, the latter said, as if hurried, "Come, let us go!"
"Yes, madame, and I ought to say for I understand such matters that at the meeting he behaved with consummate bravery." To avoid the recital of the second fine action, Madame de l'Estorade, at the risk of impolitely cutting short a topic thus begun, rose, and made an almost imperceptible sign to her husband that she wished to go.
Monsieur de l'Estorade took pains to point out to her all the notabilities present: first, the great men whom we need not mention, because their names are in everybody's memory; next, the poet Canalis, whose air she thought Olympian; d'Arthez, who pleased her by his modesty and absence of assumption; Vinet, of whom she remarked that he was like a viper in spectacles; Victorin Hulot, a noted orator of the Left Centre.
"True, he was only a sculptor then, and before long he may be a minister, not like Monsieur de Rastignac, but like our great poet, Canalis." "I like sermons with definite deductions," said Madame de l'Estorade, with a touch of impatience.
The latter, when he took leave of Madame de Rastignac, asked on what day he might have the honor of presenting his wife. "Why, any day," replied the countess, "but particularly on Fridays." Rastignac called on Madame de l'Estorade the next day at the hour named to him by his wife.
What would you have? L'Estorade is most presentable; he talks well; he has fine eyes; and his black hair, dashed with white, is very becoming; his southern manners, too, have something attractive about them.
Madame, I see that the electoral fever is upon you, as you are good enough to send me from Monsieur de l'Estorade so many discouragements which certainly deserve consideration. We knew already of the mission given to Comte Maxime de Trailles, a mission he endeavored at first to conceal under some irrigating project.
It was certain, he thought, that if she found the paper in his study she would deduce therefrom the fact that he had read it. Rising from his desk, he softly opened the door leading from the study to the salon, crossed the latter room on tiptoe, and dropped the letter at the farther end of it, as Madame de l'Estorade might suppose she had herself done in her hasty departure.
Spite of all this, I have graciously consented to become Mme. de l'Estorade and to receive a dowry of two hundred and fifty thousand livres, but only on the express condition of being allowed to work my will upon the grange and make a park there. I have demanded from my father, in set terms, a grant of water, which can be brought thither from Maucombe.
Word Of The Day