“I don’t know him at all,” said Madame de Castro; “though that is not to be wondered at, since I have exiled myself long enough to forget and be forgotten by half Paris. What is his name?”
The gentleman at her side—a distinguished-looking old young man, with a sarcastic smile—began with the smile, and ended with a half laugh.
“They call him,” he replied, “Le Monsieur de la petite Dame. His name is Villefort.”
“Le Monsieur de la petite Dame,” repeated Madame, testily. “That is a title of new Paris—the Paris of your Americans and English. It is villainously ill-bred.”
M. Renard’s laugh receded into the smile again, and the smile became of double significance.
“True,” he acquiesced, “but it is also villainously apropos. Look for yourself.”
Madame did so, and her next query, after she had dropped her glass again, was a sharp one.
“Who is she—the wife?”
“She is what you are pleased to call one of our Americans! You know the class,”—with a little wave of the hand,—“rich, unconventional, comfortable people, who live well and dress well, and have an incomprehensibly naïve way of going to impossible places and doing impossible things by way of enjoyment. Our fair friend there, for instance, has probably been round the world upon several occasions, and is familiar with a number of places and objects of note fearful to contemplate. They came here as tourists, and became fascinated with European life. The most overwhelming punishment which could be inflicted upon that excellent woman, the mother, would be that she should be compelled to return to her New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston, whichsoever it may be.”
“Humph!” commented Madame. “But you have not told me the name.”