"Good night, my dear boy."
And Olivier, taking up his bundle of papers and pens, left the house arm in arm with Gerald. At the master mason's door they separated, promising to see each other again at an early day.
About an hour after Olivier left his uncle, Madame Barbançon was brought back to the Batignolles in Madame de Beaumesnil's carriage.
The veteran, amazed at the silence of his housekeeper, and at the gloomy expression of her face, addressed her several times in vain, and finally begged her to help herself to the small portion of Cyprian wine that remained. Madame Barbançon took the bottle and started towards the door, then stopped short and crossed her arms with a meditative air, a movement that caused the wine-bottle to fall with a crash upon the floor.
"The deuce take you!" cried the veteran. "Look at the Cyprian wine you've wasted."
"True, I've broken the bottle," replied the housekeeper, with the air of a person just waking from a dream. "It is not surprising. Since I saw and heard Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil,—for I have just seen her, and in such a pitiable state, poor woman!—I have been racking my brain to remember something I can not remember, and I know very well that I shall be absolutely good for nothing for a long time."
"It is a good thing to know this in advance," replied the veteran, with his usual placidity of manner on seeing Madame Barbançon again relapse into a deeply preoccupied frame of mind.
CHAPTER V.
THE LION OF THE BALL.
On the day following Olivier Raymond's chance meeting with Gerald, the mother of the latter gave a dancing party.
The Duchesse de Senneterre, both by birth and by marriage, was connected with the oldest and most illustrious families of France, and though her fortune was insignificant and her house small, she gave every year four or five small but extremely elegant and exclusive dancing receptions, of which she and her two young daughters did the honours with perfect grace. The Duc de Senneterre, dead for two years, had held a high office under the Restoration.