"You demand—you demand. So you think you have only to ask, I suppose," retorted Olivier, gaily. "Understand, once for all, that the Batignolles are quite as exclusive as the Faubourg St. Germain."
"Ah, you are jealous! You make a great mistake, though, for real or supposed duchesses have very little charm for me. One doesn't come to the Batignolles to fall in love with a duchess, so you need have no fears on that score; besides, if you refuse my request, I'm on the best possible terms with Mother Barbançon, and I'll ask her to introduce me to Madame Herbaut."
"Try it, and see if you succeed in securing admittance," responded Olivier, with a laughable air of importance. "But to return to the subject of the duchess," he continued, "Madame Herbaut, who is evidently devoted to her, remarked to me the other day, when I was going into ecstasies over this company of charming young girls: 'Ah, what would you say if you could see the duchess? Unfortunately, she has failed us these last two Sundays, and we miss her terribly, for all the other girls simply worship her; but some time ago she was summoned to the bedside of a very wealthy lady who is extremely ill, and whose sufferings are so intense, as well as so peculiar in character, that her physician, at his wit's end, conceived the idea that soft and gentle music might assuage her agony at least to some extent.'"
"How singular!" exclaimed Gerald. "This invalid, whose sufferings they are endeavouring to mitigate in every conceivable way, and to whom your duchess must have been summoned, is Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil."
"The same lady who just sent for Madame Barbançon?" inquired the veteran.
"Yes, monsieur, for I had heard before of this musical remedy resorted to in the hope of assuaging that lady's terrible sufferings."
"A strange idea," said Olivier, "but one that has not proved entirely futile, I should judge, as the duchess, who is a fine musician, goes to the house of Madame de Beaumesnil every evening. That is the reason I did not see her at either of Madame Herbaut's soirées. She had just been calling on that lady, probably, when I met her just now. Struck by her regal bearing and her extraordinary beauty, I asked the porter if he knew who she was. 'It was the duchess I'm sure, M. Olivier,' he answered."
"This is all very interesting and charming, but it is rather too melancholy to suit my taste," said Gerald. "I prefer those pretty and lively girls who grace Madame Herbaut's entertainments. If you don't take me to one, you're an ingrate. Remember that pretty shop-girl in Algiers, who had an equally pretty sister!"
"What!" exclaimed the veteran, "I thought you were talking a moment ago of a pretty Jewess at Oran!"
"But, uncle, when one is at Oran one's sweetheart is at Oran. When one is at Algiers, one's sweetheart is there."