Zouzou kept these blackguard bohemian reminiscences for the imperial circle alone—to which it was suspected that he was secretly rallying himself. Among all outsiders—especially within the narrow precincts of the cream of the noble Faubourg (which remained aloof from the Tuileries)—he was a very proper and gentlemanlike person indeed, as his brother had been—and, in his mother's fond belief, "très bien pensant, très bien vu, à Frohsdorf et à Rome."
On lui aurait donné le bon Dieu sans confession—as Madame Vinard had said of Little Billee—they would have shriven him at sight, and admitted him to the holy communion on trust!
He did not present Little Billee and the Laird to his mother, nor to Mrs. and Miss Hunks; that honor was reserved for "the Man of Blood" alone; nor did he ask where they were staying, nor invite them to call on him. But in parting he expressed the immense pleasure it had given him to meet them again, and the hope he had of some day shaking their hands in London.
As the friends walked back to Paris together, it transpired that "the Man of Blood" had been invited by Madame Duchesse Mère (Maman Duchesse, as Zouzou called her) to dine with her next day, and meet the Hunkses at a furnished apartment she had taken in the Place Vendôme; for they had let (to the Hunkses) the Hôtel de la Rochemartel in the Rue de Lille; they had also been obliged to let their place in the country, le château de Boisségur (to Monsieur Despoires, or "des Poires," as he chose to spell himself on his visiting-cards—the famous soap-manufacturer—"Un très brave homme, à ce qu'on dit!" and whose only son, by-the-way, soon after married Mademoiselle Jeanne-Adélaïde d'Amaury-Brissac de Roncesvaulx de Boisségur de la Rochemartel).
"Il ne fait pas gras chez nous à présent—je vous assure!" Madame Duchesse Mère had pathetically said to Taffy—but had given him to understand that things would be very much better for her son, in the event of his marriage with Miss Hunks.
"Good heavens!" said Little Billee, on hearing this; "that grotesque little bogy in blue? Why, she's deformed—she squints—she's a dwarf, and looks like an idiot! Millions or no millions, the man who marries her is a felon! As long as there are stones to break and a road to break them on, the able-bodied man who marries a woman like that for anything but pity and kindness—and even then—dishonors himself, insults his ancestry, and inflicts on his descendants a wrong that nothing will ever redeem—he nips them in the bud—he blasts them forever! He ought to be cut by his fellow-men—sent to Coventry—to jail—to penal servitude for life! He ought to have a separate hell to himself when he dies. He ought to—"
"Shut up, you little blaspheming ruffian!" said the Laird. "Where do you expect to go to, yourself, with such frightful sentiments? And what would become of your beautiful old twelfth-century dukedoms, with a hundred yards of back-frontage opposite the Louvre, on a beautiful historic river, and a dozen beautiful historic names, and no money—if you had your way?" and the Laird wunk his historic wink.
"Twelfth-century dukedoms be damned!" said Taffy au grand sérieux, as usual. "Little Billee's quite right, and Zouzou makes me sick! Besides, what does she marry him for—not for his beauty either, I guess! She's his fellow-criminal, his deliberate accomplice, particeps delicti, accessory before the act and after! She has no right to marry at all! tar and feathers and a rail for both of them—and for Maman Duchesse too—and I suppose that's why I refused her invitation to dinner! and now let's go and dine with Dodor—...anyhow Dodor's young woman doesn't marry him for a dukedom—or even his 'de'—mais bien pour ses beaux yeux! and if the Rigolots of the future turn out less nice to look at than their sire, and not quite so amusing, they will probably be a great improvement on him in many other ways. There's room enough—and to spare!"
