“Never, indeed,” assented Madame de Talmont.
“True, undoubtedly,” said M. de Sartines.
No one noticed Stéphanie’s aside: “I see; very clever people need not care about being good. I shall tell my governess that.”
But every one looked at Ivan. For a moment he grew perfectly white with anger; then his face resumed its natural colour, and a smile played about his lips. He said nothing, however, and Emile went on: “Consequently he never overshot the mark and made himself ridiculous, as I must say the Emperor Alexander did the other day, when he actually admitted to his own table, and spent hours in conversation with—whom do you think, ladies?”
As neither Madame de Talmont nor Clémence replied, Stéphanie felt herself called upon. “Perhaps the Director of the Ecole Polytechnique, or—could it possibly have been one of the boys?—students, I beg your pardon,” said she with a saucy glance at Emile.
“My dear child,” said her father in a grieved and reproving aside, “do not, I pray thee, try to act l’enfant terrible.”
Emile did not condescend to notice her, “No one greater,” he resumed, “than the Abbé Sicard.”
“Who is he?” asked M. de Sartines.
Madame de Talmont and Clémence knew very well, and looked interested.
“An old fool of a priest who spends his life picking up deaf and dumb children out of the streets, and teaching them to read and to say their prayers,” replied Emile.