"And I, too, have noticed that people I haven't seen for ages, and with whom I was never on particularly friendly terms, are endeavouring to renew their acquaintance. The other day, at Madame de Mirecourt's, I had a crowd around me, I was literally surrounded, beset on every side," said the baron, complacently.
"And even the Marquis de Maillefort, whom I have always hated, is no exception to the rule," added the baroness.
"And you are right," exclaimed the baron. "There is no one in the whole world I hate as I hate that infernal hunchback!"
"I have seen him twice," Helena said, piously, in her turn. "Every vice seems to be written on his face. He looks like Satan himself."
"Well, one day this Satan suddenly dropped down from the clouds, as cool as you please, though he hadn't set foot in my house for five or six years, and he has called several times since."
"If he has taken to flattering you and paying court to you it can hardly be on his own account."
"Evidently not, so I am convinced that M. de Maillefort has some ulterior motive, and I am resolved to discover this motive."
"I'm sorry to learn that he's coming here again," said M. de la Rochaiguë. "He is my greatest antipathy, my bête noire."
"Oh, don't talk nonsense," exclaimed the baroness, impatiently; "we have got to put up with the marquis, there's no help for it. Besides, if a man of his position makes such advances to you, how will it be with others? This is an incontestable proof of our influence. Let us endeavour to profit by it in every possible way, and by and by, when the girl is ready to settle down, we shall be stupid indeed if we cannot induce her to make a choice that will be very advantageous to us."
"You state the case admirably, my dear," said the baron, apparently much impressed, while Helena, who was evidently no less deeply interested, drew her chair closer to that of her brother and his wife.