In the Days of My Youth: A Novel

by Amelia B. Edwards

The little woman's eyes had all this time been getting rounder and blacker. She was evidently confounded by my friend's grandiloquence.

"Ah! mon Dieu! M'sieur," she said, nervously, "my husband is in the kitchen. It is a busy day with us, you understand--but I will send for him."

And she forthwith despatched a waiter for "Monsieur Choucru."

Müller seized me by the arm.

"Heavens!" he exclaimed, in a very audible aside, "did you hear? She is his wife! She is Madame Choucru?"

"Well, and what of that?"

"What of that, indeed? Mais, mon ami, how can you ask the question? Have you no eyes? Look at her! Such a remarkably handsome woman--such a tournure--such eyes--such a figure for an illustration! Only conceive the effect of Madame Choucru--in medallion!"

"Oh, magnificent!" I replied. "Magnificent--in medallion."

But I could not, for the life of me, imagine what he was driving at.

"And it would make the fortune of the Toison d'Or" he added, solemnly.