"Will your husband come?"
"Oh, he does what I want him to do, always."
They were all talking and answering each other's questions without really listening to anything, as every one was chattering at the same time. Words, questions, and voices were all mingled together in the Babel: it was like the chirping of so many birds in a cage. The door opened, and a tall, thin woman dressed in black, entered.
"Don't disturb yourselves, any of you; I have only just come in as I am passing. I have only one minute."
She bowed to the ladies and took up her position in front of the chimney-piece, with her elbow on the marble and her hands in her muff. She glanced at herself in the glass, and then, lifting her dress skirt, held out the thin sole of her dainty little boot to the fire.
"Henriette," she began, "I have come to ask you a favour—a great favour. You absolutely must undertake the invitations for the ball that the Brodmers are giving—you know, those Americans, who have just come; they have a flat in the Rue de la Paix, and the rent is sixteen hundred a year."
"Oh, the Brodmers—yes," put in Mme. de Thésigny.
"But, my dear," said Mme. Davarande, "it's a very delicate matter—I don't know them. Have you any idea what these people are?"
"Why, they are Americans. They've made their fortune out of cotton, candles, indigo, or negroes—or—I don't know what; but what in the world does that matter to us? Americans, you know, are accepted nowadays. As far as I am concerned—with people who give balls, there's only one thing I care about, and that is that they shouldn't belong to the police and should give good suppers. It's all superb at their house, it seems. The wife is astonishing. She talks the French of the backwoods; and people say she was tattooed when she was a child. That's why she can't wear low dresses. It's most amusing, and she is so entertaining. They want to get plenty of people, you see. You will do it for me, won't you? I can assure you that if I were not in mourning I should have had great pleasure in putting on the invitation cards, 'With the Baronne de Lermont's compliments.' And then, too, they are people who will do things properly. Oh, as to that I'm convinced of it. They are sure to make you a present——"
"Oh no, if I undertake the invitations I don't want a present for it."