“Ah! you know the Cicogna, I presume. I am sure I did not wish to say anything that could offend her best friends, only I do think it is a pity she is not married, poor girl!”
“Mademoiselle Cicogna, accomplished, beautiful, of good birth (the Cicogna’s rank among the oldest of Lombard families), is not likely to want offers.”
“Offers of marriage,—h’m—well, I dare say, from authors and artists. You know Paris better even than I do, but I don’t suppose authors and artists there make the most desirable husbands; and I scarcely know a marriage in France between a man-author and lady-author which does not end in the deadliest of all animosities—that of wounded amour propre. Perhaps the man admires his own genius too much to do proper homage to his wife’s.”
“But the choice of Mademoiselle Cicogna need not be restricted to the pale of authorship—doubtless she has many admirers beyond that quarrelsome borderland.”
“Certainly-countless adorers. Enguerrand de Vandemar—you know that diamond of dandies?”
“Perfectly—is he an admirer?”
“Cela va sans dire—he told me that though she was not the handsomest woman in Paris, all other women looked less handsome since he had seen her. But, of course, French lady-killers like Enguerrand, when it comes to marriage, leave it to their parents to choose their wives and arrange the terms of the contract. Talking of lady-killers, I beheld amid the throng at Mademoiselle Cicogna’s the ci-devant Lovelace whom I remember some twenty-three years ago as the darling of wives and the terror of husbands-Victor de Mauleon.”
“Victor de Mauleon at Mademoiselle Cicogna’s!—what, is that man restored to society?”
“Ah! you are thinking of the ugly old story about the jewels—oh, yes, he has got over that; all his grand relations, the Vandemars, Beauvilliers, Rochebriant, and others, took him by the hand when he reappeared at Paris last year; and though I believe he is still avoided by many, he is courted by still more—and avoided, I fancy, rather from political than social causes. The Imperialist set, of course, execrate and prescribe him. You know he is the writer of those biting articles signed Pierre Firmin in the Sens Commun; and I am told he is the proprietor of that very clever journal, which has become a power.”
“So, so—that is the journal in which Mademoiselle Cicogna’s roman first appeared. So, so—Victor de Mauleon one of her associates, her counsellor and friend—ah!”