"About how old?"
"Twenty-five, judging from his face."
"He is married, of course?"
"No, madame."
"Where does he live?"
"At the pavilion, with his mother."
"Is he a good sort of man? What do people say of him?"
"He is a most excellent young man, madame la comtesse. Everybody speaks well of him. They are very poor, and they pay all their bills, never keep anybody waiting. And yet they are not stingy, they never do anything mean. One would say that they must be people of quality."
Camille did not mean to flatter her mistress by speaking in that way. She, too, claimed to be well-born and to have known better days. She claimed that some of her ancestors had been sheriffs.
"Mon Dieu, Camille, birth is of no consequence," said the countess, who was often vexed by her maid's airs.