“If I do, of course it will be for the sake of the country and the Army. We must save France.”
“That is my opinion.”
“Remember me to Madame Panneton.”
“I will not forget, dear madame. Until to-morrow.”
CHAPTER XIX
In Monsieur Felix Panneton’s little house there was a large room which had formerly been used as a studio by the fashionable painter, and which the new inmate had furnished with the magnificence of a great collector of curios and the discretion of an accomplished lover of women. Artistically and in methodical order Monsieur Panneton had strewn the room with couches, sofas and divans of all shapes and kinds.
Looking from right to left as you went in, you would first of all notice a little blue silk settee the arms of which, shaped like a swan’s neck, reminded one of the time when Bonaparte in Paris, like Tiberius of old in Rome, was bent on improving the manners and customs of society. Then came another rather bigger couch upholstered in Beauvais cloth with tapestry-covered ends; then a settee in three divisions, covered in silk; then a little wooden settee à la capucine with a covering of Turkish tapestry; then a large sofa of gilded wood upholstered in crimson figured velvet with cushions of the same, which had belonged to Mademoiselle Damours; then a broad, low, luxuriously stuffed divan of flame-coloured silk; and finally a tottering mass of soft cushions on a very low Oriental divan which, bathed in a dim rose-coloured light, stood on the left near the Baudouin room.
As she entered the room, each charming visitor could thus take in with a glance the varied seats and choose the one that best suited her moral character and her present state of mind. Panneton, from the first, observed his new friends, noticed their expressions, took some trouble to discover their tastes, and was careful to ensure that they should sit only where they wished to sit. The more chaste of his lady friends went straight to the little blue settee, placing a gloved hand on the swan’s neck. There was also a high straight-backed arm-chair of gilded wood and Genoa velvet, the former throne of a Duchess of Modena and Parma; that was for the haughty beauties. The Parisian ladies seated themselves calmly on the Beauvais couch; the foreign princesses generally preferred one of the two sofas. Thanks to the judicious arrangement of these aids to conversation, Panneton knew at a glance what he had to do. He was in a position to observe all the conventions, careful not to attempt too sudden a transition in the necessary succession of his attitudes, and was able to spare both his visitor and himself those long and useless pauses between the preliminary courtesies and the inspection of the Baudouins. His proceedings thereby gained a certainty and a mastery which did him honour.