"I decide, then, for this necklace," said D'Harville. "You will have to settle with M. Doublet, my steward, Baudoin."
"M. Doublet has advised me, my lord," said the jeweler, and he went out, after having put in his sack, without counting them, the different sets of jewels which he had brought, and which Saint Remy had for a long time handled and examined during this conversation.
D'Harville, in giving this necklace to Joseph, who awaited his orders, whispered to him, "Mlle. Juliette must put these diamonds quietly with her lady's, without her suspecting it, so that the surprise will be complete."
At this moment the butler announced that breakfast was served; the guests passed into the breakfast-room and seated themselves at the table.
"Do you know, my dear D'Harville," said the duke, "that this house is one of the most elegant and best arranged in Paris?"
"It is commodious enough, but it wants space; my project is to add a gallery on the garden. Madame d'Harville desires to give some grand balls, and our three saloons are not large enough; besides, I find nothing more inconvenient than the encroachments made by a fete on the apartments which one habitually occupies, and from which, for the time, you are exiled."
"I am of your opinion," said Saint Remy; "nothing is in worse taste, more in the 'city' fashion, than these forced removals by authority of a ball or concert. To give fetes really splendid, without any inconvenience to one's self, a particular suite of apartments must be arranged exclusively for them; and, besides, vast and splendid saloons, destined for grand balls, ought to have a different character from rooms in ordinary occupation: there is between the two species of apartments the same difference as between a splendid fresco and a cabinet picture."
"He is right," said D'Harville; "what a pity that Saint Remy has not twelve or fifteen hundred thousand livres a year! what wonders we should enjoy!"
"Since we have the happiness to enjoy a representative government," said the Duke de Lucenay, "ought not the country to vote a million a year to Saint Remy, and charge him to represent at Paris French taste and fashion, which would thus decide the fashion of Europe and the world?"
"Adopted!" was cried in chorus.