"Why! you don't mean to say that you are here already!" exclaimed Madame de Rueille admiringly. "I will wager anything that that slow coach of a Paul is not ready."
"Did you do all the commissions?" asked the marchioness.
"Yes, grandmamma, and I have a special one for you. The Juzencourts wished me to tell you that M. de Clagny is coming back to live at The Norinière, and that he will come every year."
"Oh!" exclaimed Madame de Bracieux, looking very delighted, "I am glad to hear that. I never expected to see him come back here."
"Why?" asked Bijou.
"Well, because when he was here he had a great grief, just at an age when painful impressions can never be effaced."
"At what age is that?" asked Jean de Blaye, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
"Forty-eight. And when you are that age, you will not be as fond of ridiculing everything as you are now, my dear boy; and it won't be so long before you get there as you think either."
"So much the better," he answered, smiling; "that must be the ideal age—the age when one's heart is at rest."
"In some cases it is at rest before that age," said the marchioness slily, looking at her nephew.