"He, he!" laughed the countess. "Perhaps it is the soul of the poor president come back to count one, two, three, four, etc. Sit down, and don't interrupt me again."
"You have always had the courage of a dragon, madame."
"There's no cause for alarm, you goose. Some osprey or some wild animal may have sought shelter there. I want to know who that big hulking boy was that Raoul saw with that Bastien woman,—her brother, eh?"
"No, madame, her son."
"Her son; why, in that case—"
"She was married when she was very young, and she is so admirably preserved that she doesn't look a day over twenty."
"That must be so, for Raoul took a desperate fancy to her. 'She has big, dark blue eyes, grandmother,' he said to me, 'a waist one can span with his two hands, and features as regular as those on an antique cameo. Only these plebeians are so little versed in the customs of good society that this one opened her big eyes in astonishment, merely because I was polite enough to take her a mantle she had dropped.' 'If she is as pretty as you say, you young simpleton, you ought to have kept the mantle, and taken it to her house. That would have gained you an entrance there.' 'But, grandmother,' replied the dear boy, very sensibly, 'it was by returning the mantle I found out that she was so pretty.'"
"Oh, well, M. Raoul could easily have gone to her house a few days afterward. She would have been delighted to see him, even if it were only to make all the bourgeoisie in the country, wild with envy."
"That is exactly what I told the dear child, but he did not dare to venture."
"Give him a little time, and he'll get his courage up, never fear."