"None till eleven o'clock, when I have promised to go to a soiree to which I do not offer to take you; for it is one of those Bohemian entertainments at which it would do you harm in the Faubourg to assist, —at least until you have made good your position. Let me see, is not the Duchesse de Tarascon a relation of yours?"
"Yes; my poor mother's first cousin."
"I congratulate you. 'Tres grande dame.' She will launch you in 'puro coelo,' as Juno might have launched one of her young peacocks."
"There has been no acquaintance between our houses," returned the
Marquis, dryly, "since the mesalliance of her second nuptials."
"Mesalliance! second nuptials! Her second husband was the Duc de
Tarascon."
"A duke of the First Empire, the grandson of a butcher."
"Diable! you are a severe genealogist, Monsieur le Marquis. How can you consent to walk arm-in-arm with me, whose great-grandfather supplied bread to the same army to which the Due de Tarascon's grandfather furnished the meat?"
"My dear Frederic, we two have an equal pedigree, for our friendship dates from the same hour. I do not blame the Duchesse de Tarascon for marrying the grandson of a butcher, but for marrying the son of a man made duke by a usurper. She abandoned the faith of her house and the cause of her sovereign. Therefore her marriage is a blot on our scutcheon."
Frederic raised his eyebrows, but had the tact to pursue the subject no further. He who interferes in the quarrels of relations must pass through life without a friend.
The young men now arrived at Lemercier's apartment, an entresol looking on the Boulevard des Italiens, consisting of more rooms than a bachelor generally requires; low-pitched, indeed, but of good dimensions, and decorated and furnished with a luxury which really astonished the provincial, though, with the high-bred pride of an oriental, he suppressed every sign of surprise.