“She lives on a third floor in the Boulevard Haussmann, between the Rue de l’Arcade and the Rue Pesquier,” said Georges all in a breath.
And when the other looked at him in much astonishment, he added, turning very red and fit to sink into the ground with embarrassment and conceit:
“I’m of the party. She invited me this morning.”
But there was a great stir in the drawing room, and Vandeuvres and Fauchery could not continue pressing the count. The Marquis de Chouard had just come in, and everyone was anxious to greet him. He had moved painfully forward, his legs failing under him, and he now stood in the middle of the room with pallid face and eyes blinking, as though he had just come out of some dark alley and were blinded by the brightness of the lamps.
“I scarcely hoped to see you tonight, Father,” said the countess. “I should have been anxious till the morning.”
He looked at her without answering, as a man might who fails to understand. His nose, which loomed immense on his shorn face, looked like a swollen pimple, while his lower lip hung down. Seeing him such a wreck, Mme Hugon, full of kind compassion, said pitying things to him.
“You work too hard. You ought to rest yourself. At our age we ought to leave work to the young people.”
“Work! Ah yes, to be sure, work!” he stammered at last. “Always plenty of work.”
He began to pull himself together, straightening up his bent figure and passing his hand, as was his wont, over his scant gray hair, of which a few locks strayed behind his ears.
“At what are you working as late as this?” asked Mme du Joncquoy. “I thought you were at the financial minister’s reception?”