The Chevalier, in easy deshabille, with a flask of good wine, iced water, and delicate cakes and confitures before him, a witty and licentious epigrammatic poem close under his hand, sat lazily enjoying the luxuries that it had been his daughter’s satisfaction to procure for him ever since her marriage. He sprang up to meet her with a grace and deference that showed how different a person was the Comtesse de Selinville from Diane de Ribaumont.
‘Ah! ma belle, my sweet,’ as there was a mutual kissing of hands, ‘thou art returned. Had I known thine hour, I had gone down for thy first embrace. But thou lookest fair, my child; the convent has made thee lovelier than ever.’
‘Father, who think you is here? It is he—the Baron.’
‘The Baron? Eh, father!’ she cried impetuously. ‘Who could it be but one?’
‘My child, you are mistaken! That young hot-head can never be thrusting himself here again.’
‘But he is, father; I brought him into Paris in my coach! I left him at the Ambassador’s.’
‘Thou shouldest have brought him here. There will be ten thousand fresh imbroglios.’
‘I could not; he is as immovable as ever, though unable to speak! Oh, father, he is very ill, he suffers terribly. Oh, Narcisse! Ah! may I never see him again!’
‘But what brings him blundering her again?’ exclaimed the Chevalier. ‘Speak intelligibly, child! I thought we had guarded against that! He knows nothing of the survivance.’
‘I cannot tell much. He could not open his mouth, and his half-brother, a big dull English boy, stammered out a few words of shocking French against his will. But I believe they had heard of la pauvre petite at La Sablerie, came over for her, and finding the ruin my brother makes wherever he goes, are returning seeking intelligence and succour for HIM.’