A light carriage, drawn by one horse, was conveying the Mauperin family along the Sannois road. RenÉe had taken the reins and the whip from her brother, who was seated at her side smoking. Animated by the drive, the air, and the movement, M. Mauperin was joking about the people they met and bowing gaily to any acquaintances they passed. Mme. Mauperin was silent and absorbed. She was buried in herself, thinking out and preparing her amiability for the approaching visit.

"Why, mamma," remarked RenÉe, "you don't say a word. Are you not well?"

"Oh, yes, very well, quite well," answered Mme. Mauperin; "but the fact is I'm worrying rather about this visit—and if it had not been for Henri—There's something so stiff and cold about Mme. Bourjot—they are all so high and mighty. Oh, it isn't that they impress me at all—their money indeed! I know too well where they had it from. They made their money from some invention they bought from an unfortunate working-man for a mere nothing—a few coppers."

"Come, come, Mme. Mauperin," put in her husband, "they must have bought more than——"

"Well, anyhow, I don't feel at ease with these people."

"You are very foolish to trouble yourself——"

"We can tell them we don't care a hang for their fine airs!" said Mlle. Mauperin, whipping up the horse so that her slang was lost in the sound of the animal's gallop.

---

There was some reason for Mme. Mauperin's uneasiness. Her feeling of constraint was certainly justified. Everything in the house to which she was going was calculated to intimidate people, to set them down, crush them, penetrate and overwhelm them with a sense of their own inferiority. There was an ostentatious and studied show of money, a clever display of wealth. Opulence aimed at the humiliation of less fortunate beings, by all possible means of intimidation, by outrageous or refined forms of luxury, by the height of the ceilings, by the impertinent airs of the lackeys, by the footman with his silver chain, stationed in the entrance-hall, by the silver plate on which everything was served, by all kinds of princely ways and customs, such as the strict observance of evening dress, even when mother and daughter were dining alone, by an etiquette as rigid as that of a small German court. The master and mistress were in harmony with and maintained the style of their house. The spirit of their home and life was as it were incarnate in them.

The man, with all that he had copied from the English gentry, his manners, his dress, his curled whiskers, his outward distinction; the woman, with her grand manners, her supreme elegance, all the stiffness and formality of the upper middle class, represented admirably the pride of money. Their disdainful politeness, their haughty amiability, seemed to come down to people. There was a kind of insolence which was visible in their tastes even. M. Bourjot had neither any pictures nor any objects of art; his collection was a collection of precious stones, among which he pointed out a ruby worth a thousand pounds, one of the finest in Europe.

People had overlooked all this display of wealth, and the Bourjot's salon was now very much in vogue and conspicuous on account of its pronounced tendencies in favour of the Opposition party. It had become, in fact, one of the three or four important salons of Paris. It had been peopled after two or three winters which Mme. Bourjot had spent in Nice under pretext of benefitting her health. She had converted her house there into a kind of hotel on the road to Italy, open to all who passed by provided they were great, wealthy, celebrated, or that they had a name. At her musical evenings, when Mme. Bourjot gave every one an opportunity for admiring her beautiful voice and her great musical talent, the celebrities of Europe and Parisians of repute met in her drawing-room. Scientists, great philosophers and Æsthetes mingled with politicians. The latter were represented by a compact group of Orleanists and a band of Liberals not pledged to any party, in whose ranks Henri Mauperin had figured most assiduously for the past year. A few Legitimists whom the husband brought to his wife's salon were also to be seen, M. Bourjot himself being a Legitimist.

Under the Restoration he had been a Carbonaro. He was the son of a draper, and his birth and name of Bourjot had from his earliest childhood exasperated him against the nobility, grand houses, and the Bourbons. He had been in various conspiracies, and had met with M. Mauperin at Carbonari reunions. He had figured in all the tumults, and had been fond of quoting Berville, Saint-Just, and Dupin the elder. After 1830 he had calmed down and had contented himself with sulking with royalty for having cheated him of his republic. He read the National, pitied the people of all lands, despised the Chambers, railed at M. Guizot, and was eloquent about the Pritchard affair.

The events of 1848 came upon him suddenly, and the landowner then woke up alarmed and rose erect in the person of the Carbonaro of the Restoration, the Liberal of Louis Philippe's reign. The fall in stocks, the unproductiveness of houses, socialism, the proposed taxes, the dangers to which State creditors were exposed, the eventful days of June, and indeed everything which is calculated to strike terror to the heart of a moneyed man during a revolution, disturbed M. Bourjot's equanimity, and at the same time enlightened him. His ideas suddenly underwent a change, and his political conscience veered completely round. He hastened to adopt the doctrines of order, and turned to the Church as he might have done to the police authorities, to the Divine right as the supreme power and a providential security for his bills.

Unfortunately, in M. Bourjot's brusque but sincere conversion, his education, his youth, his past, his whole life rose in revolt. He had returned to the Bourbons, but he had not been able to come back to Jesus Christ, and, old man as he now was, he would make all kinds of slips and give utterance to the attacks and refrains to which he had been accustomed. One felt, the nearer one came to him, that he was still quite a Voltairean on certain points, and Beranger was constantly taking the place of de Maistre with him.

---

"Give the reins to your brother, RenÉe," said Mme. Mauperin. "I shouldn't like them to see you driving."

They were in front of a magnificent large gateway, opposite which were two lamps that were always lighted and left burning all night. The carriage turned up a drive, covered with red gravel and planted on each side with huge clumps of rhododendrons, and drew up before a flight of stone steps. Two footmen threw open the glass doors leading into a hall paved with marble and with high windows nearly hidden by the verdure of a wide screen of exotic shrubs.

The Mauperins were then introduced into a drawing-room, the walls of which were covered with crimson silk. A portrait of Mme. Bourjot in evening dress, signed by Ingres, was the only picture in the room. Through the open windows could be seen a pool of water, and near it a stork, the only creature that M. Bourjot would tolerate in his park, and that on account of its heraldic form.

When the Mauperins entered the large drawing-room, Mme. Bourjot, seated by herself on the divan, was listening to her daughter's governess who was reading aloud. M. Bourjot was leaning against the chimney-piece playing with his watch-chain. Mlle. Bourjot, near her governess, was working at some tapestry on a frame.

Mme. Bourjot, with her large, rather hard blue eyes, her arched eye-brows, and the lines of her eye-lids, her haughty and pronounced nose, the supercilious prominence of the lower part of the face, and her imperious grace, reminded one of Georges, when young, in the rÔle of Agrippina. Mlle. Bourjot had strongly marked brown eye-brows. Between her long, curly lashes could be seen two blue eyes with an intense, profound, dreamy expression in them. A slight down almost white could be seen when the light was full on her, just above her lip at the two corners. The governess was one of those retiring creatures, one of those elderly women who have been knocked about and worn out in the battle of life, outwardly and inwardly, and who finally have no more effigy left than an old copper coin.

"Why, this is really charming!" said Mme. Bourjot, getting up and advancing as far as a line of the polished floor in the centre of the room. "What kind neighbours—and what a delightful surprise! It seems an age since I had the pleasure of seeing you, dear madame, and if it were not for your son, who is good enough not to forsake us, and who comes to my Monday Evenings, we should not have known what had become of you—of this charming girl—and her mamma——"

As she spoke Mme. Bourjot shook hands with Henri.

"Oh! you are very kind," began Mme. Mauperin, taking a seat at some distance from Mme. Bourjot.

"But please come over here," said Mme. Bourjot, making room at her side.

"We have postponed our visit from day to day," continued Mme. Mauperin, "as we wanted to come together."

"Oh! well, it's very bad of you," continued Mme. Bourjot. "We are not a hundred miles away; and it is cruel to keep these two children apart, when they grew up together. Why, how's this, they haven't kissed each other yet?"

NoÉmi, who was still standing, presented her cheek coldly to RenÉe, who kissed her as eagerly, as a child bites into fruit.

"What a long time ago it seems," observed Mme. Bourjot to Mme. Mauperin, as she looked at the two girls, "since we used to take them to the Rue de la ChaussÉe d'Antin to those lectures, that bored us as much as they did the poor children. I can see them now, playing together. Yours was just like quicksilver, a regular little turk, and mine—Oh, they were like night and day! But yours always led mine on. Oh, dear, what a rage they had at one time for charades—do you remember? They used to carry off all the towels in the house to dress up with."

"Oh, yes," exclaimed RenÉe, laughing and turning to NoÉmi, "our finest one was when we did Marabout; with Marat in a bath that was too hot, calling out, 'Je bous, je bous!' Do you remember?"

"Yes, indeed," answered NoÉmi, trying to keep back a smile, "but it was your idea."

"I am so glad, madame, to find you quite inclined beforehand for what I wanted to ask you—for my visit is a selfish one. It was chiefly with the idea of letting our daughters see something of each other that I came. RenÉe wants to get up a play, and she naturally thought of her old school-friend. If you would allow your daughter to take part in a piece with my daughter—it would be just a little family affair—quite informal."

As Mme. Mauperin made this request, NoÉmi, who had been talking to RenÉe and had put her hand in her friend's, drew it away again abruptly.

"Thank you so much for the idea," answered Mme. Bourjot, "thanks, too, to RenÉe. You could not have asked me anything that would have suited me better and given me so much pleasure. I think it would be very good for NoÉmi—the poor child is so shy that I am in despair! It would make her talk and come out of herself. For her mind, too, it would be an excellent stimulant——"

"Oh! but, mother, you know very well—why, I've no memory. And then, too—why, the very idea of acting frightens me. Oh, no—I can't act——"

Mme. Bourjot glanced coldly at her daughter.

"But, mother, if I could—No, I should spoil the whole play, I'm sure."

"You will act—I wish you to do so."

NoÉmi looked down, and Mme. Mauperin, slightly embarrassed and by way of changing the subject, glanced at a Review that was lying open on a work-table at her side.

"Ah!" said Mme. Bourjot, turning to her again, "you've found something you know there—that is your son's last article. And when do you intend having this play?"

"Oh, but I should be so sorry to be the cause—to oblige your daughter——"

"Oh! don't mention it. My daughter is always afraid of undertaking anything."

"Well, but if NoÉmi really dislikes it," put in M. Bourjot, who had been talking to M. Mauperin and Henri on the other side of the room.

"On the contrary she will be grateful to you," said Mme. Bourjot, addressing Mme. Mauperin without answering M. Bourjot. "We are always obliged to insist on her doing anything for her own enjoyment. Well, when is this play?"

"RenÉe, when do you think?" asked Mme. Mauperin.

"Why, I should think about—well, we should want a month for the rehearsals, with two a week. We could fix the days and the time that would suit NoÉmi."

RenÉe turned towards NoÉmi, who remained silent.

"Very well, then," said Mme. Bourjot, "let us say Monday and Friday at two o'clock, if that will suit you—shall we?" And turning to the governess she continued: "Mlle. Gogois, you will accompany NoÉmi. M. Bourjot—you hear—will you give orders for the horses and carriage and the footman to take them to Briche? You can keep Terror for me, and Jean. There, that's all settled. Now, then, you will stay and dine with us, won't you?"

"Oh! we should like to very much; but it is quite impossible. We have some people coming to us to-day," answered Mme. Mauperin.

"Oh, dear, how tiresome of them to come to-day! But I don't think you have seen my husband's new conservatories. I'll make you a bouquet, RenÉe. We have a flower—there are only two of them anywhere, and the other is at FerriÈres—it's a—it's very ugly anyhow—this way."

"Suppose we were to go in here," said M. Bourjot, pointing to the billiard-room, which could be seen through the glass door. "M. Henri, we'll leave you with the ladies. We can smoke here," added M. Bourjot, offering a cabanas to M. Mauperin. "Shall we have cannoning?"

"Yes," replied M. Mauperin.

M. Bourjot closed the pockets of the billiard-table.

"Twenty-four?"

"Yes, twenty-four."

"Have you billiards at home, M. Mauperin?"

"No, I haven't. My son doesn't play."

"Are you looking for the chalk?"

"Thanks. And as my wife doesn't think it a suitable game for girls——"

"It's your turn."

"Oh! I'm quite out of practice—I always was a duffer at it though."

"Well, but you are not giving me the game at all. There, it's all up with my play—I was used to that cue," and M. Bourjot gave vent to his feelings in an oath. "These rascals of workmen—they haven't any conscience at all. There's no getting anything well made in these days. Well, you are scoring: three, I'll mark it. The fact is we are at their service. The other day, now, I wanted some chandeliers put up. Well, would you believe it, M. Mauperin, I couldn't get a man? It was a holiday—I forget what holiday it was—and they would not come—they are the lords of creation, nowadays. Do you imagine that they ever bring us anything of what they shoot or fish? Oh, no, when they get anything dainty they eat it themselves. I know what it is in Paris—four? Oh, come now! Every penny they earn is spent at the wine-shop. On Sundays they spend at least a sovereign. The locksmith here has a Lefaucheux gun and takes out a shooting license. Ah, two for me at last! And the money they ask now for their work! Why, they want four shillings a day for mowing! I have vineyards in Burgundy, and they proposed to see to them for me for three years, and then the third year they would be their own. This is what we are coming to! Luckily for me I'm an old man, so that it won't be in my time; but in a hundred years from now there will be no such thing as being waited on—there'll be no servants. I often say to my wife and daughter: 'You'll see—the day will come when you will have to make your own beds. Five?—six?—- you do know how to play. The Revolution has done for us, you know." And M. Bourjot began to hum:

"These were not exactly your ideas some thirty years ago, when we met for the first time; do you remember?" said M. Mauperin with a smile.

"That's true. I had some fine ideas in those days—too fine!" replied M. Bourjot, resting his left hand on his cue. "Ah, we were young—I should just think I do remember. It was at Lallemand's funeral.—By Jove! that was the best blow I ever gave in my life—a regular knock-you-down. I can see the nails in that police inspector's boots now, when I had landed him on the ground so that I could cross the boulevards. At the corner of the Rue PoissonniÈre I came upon a patrol—they set about me with a vengeance. I was with Caminade—you knew Caminade, didn't you? He was a lively one. He was the man who used to go and smoke his pipe at the mission service belonging to the Church of the Petits-PÈres. He went with his meerschaum pipe that cost nearly sixty pounds, and he took a girl from the Palais-Royal. He was lucky, for he managed to escape, but they took me to the police station, belabouring me with the butt-end of their guns. Fortunately Dulaurens caught sight of me——"

"Ah—Dulaurens!" said M. Mauperin. "We were in the same Carbonari society. He had a shawl shop, it seems to me."

"Yes, and do you know what became of him?"

"No. I lost sight of him."

"Well, one fine day—it was after all this business—his partner went off to Belgium, taking with him eight thousand pounds. They put the police on his track, but they could hear nothing of him. Our friend Dulaurens goes into a church and makes a vow to get converted if he finds his money again. They find his money for him and now his piety is simply sickening. I never see him now; but in the old days he was a lively one, I can tell you. Well, when I saw him I gave him a look and he understood. You see, I had twenty-five guns in my house and five hundred cartridges. When the police went there to search he had cleared them away. All the same I was kept three months shut up in the new building, and two or three times was fetched up in the night to be cross-examined, and I always went with a vague idea in my mind that I was going to be shot. You've gone through it all, and you know what it is.—And all that was for the sake of Socialism! And yet I heard a few words that ought to have enlightened me. When I was free again one of my prison friends came to see me at Sedan. 'Why, what's this,' he said, 'that I am told at the hotel? It seems that your father has land and money, and yet you have joined us! Why, I thought you hadn't anything!' Just fancy now, M. Mauperin—and when I think that even that did not open my eyes! You see I was convinced in those days that all those with whom I was in league wanted simply what I wanted: laws for rich and poor alike, the abolition of privileges, the end of the Revolution of '89 against the nobility—I thought we should stop there—eleven? Did I mark your last? I don't think I did—let us say twelve. But, good heavens! when I saw my republic I was disgusted with it, when I heard two men, who had just come down from the barricades in February, say, 'We ought not to have left them until we had made sure of two hundred a year!' And then the system of taxes according to the income; it's an iniquity—the hypocrisy of communism. But with taxes regulated by the income," continued M. Bourjot, eloquently breaking off in the midst of his own phrase, "I challenge them to find any one who will care to take the trouble of making a large fortune—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—very good! Oh, you are too strong a player. All that has made me turn round—you understand?"

"Perfectly," replied M. Mauperin.

"Where's my ball—there? Yes, it has made me turn completely round; it has positively made a Legitimist of me. There—a bad cue again! But——"

"But what?"

"Well, there is one thing—Oh, on that subject, now, I have the same opinions still. I don't mind telling you. Anything approaching a parson—eighteen?—Oh, come, I'm done for! We invite the one here in this place—he's a very decent fellow; but as to priests—when you've known one as I have, who broke his leg getting over the college wall at night—they are a pack of Jesuits, you know, M. Mauperin!

"Ah, that's my man! The god of simple folks!

"Twenty-one! You've only three more. Now, at the place where my iron-works are, there's a bishop who is very easy-going. Well, all the bigots detest him. Now, if he pretended to be a bigot, if he were a hypocrite and spent all his time at church——"

---

"I never saw Mme. Bourjot so amiable," remarked Mme. Mauperin, when she and her family were all back in the carriage.

"An odd chap, that Bourjot," observed M. Mauperin. "It isn't much good having a billiard-table of his own either—I could have given him a start of twelve."

"I think NoÉmi is very strange," said RenÉe. "Did you see, Henri, how she wanted to get out of acting?"

Henri did not answer.

---