"I'm sorry, my dear, I'm very sorry. My wife is an excellent woman, you know, gentlemen, but if you disarrange her symmetry for her—It's quite a religion with my wife—symmetry is."
"How ridiculous you are, M. Mauperin!" said Mme. Mauperin, blushing at being convicted of the most flagrant provincialism; and then, turning upon her daughter, she exclaimed, "Oh, dear, Renée, how you stoop! Do sit up, my child——"
"That's always the way," murmured the young girl, speaking to herself. "Mamma avenges herself on me."
"Gentlemen," said M. Mauperin, when they had returned to the drawing-room, "you can smoke here, you know. We owe that liberty to my son. He has been lucky enough to obtain his mother's——"
"Coffee, god-papa?" asked Renée.
"No," answered M. Barousse, "I shouldn't be able to go to sleep——"
"Here," put in Renée, finishing his sentence for him.
"M. Reverchon?"
"I never take it, thank you very much."
She went backward and forward, the steam from the cup of hot coffee she was carrying rising to her face and flushing it.