“What have you to show that’s better?” replied Ernest, in a piqued tone.
“Oh!” said the Scot, with a superior air, “something much better.”
And drawing from the pouch which formed an integral part of his costume a note on violet paper highly perfumed,—
“There,” he said, putting it under Ernest’s nose, “smell that!”
Indelicate friend that he was, Ernest pounced upon the note and took possession of it. The Scottish youth, furious, flung himself upon the treacherous French boy; on which Monsieur de l’Estorade, a thousand leagues from imagining the subject of the quarrel, intervened and parted the combatants, which enabled the ravisher to escape into a corner of the salon to enjoy his booty. The note contained no writing. The young scamp had probably taken the paper out of his mother’s blotting-book. A moment after, returning to his adversary and giving him the note, he said in a jeering tone,—
“There’s your note; it is awfully compromising.”
“Keep it, monsieur,” replied the Scot. “I shall ask for it to-morrow in the Tuileries, under the horse-chestnuts; meantime, you will please understand that all intercourse is at an end between us.”
Ernest was less knightly; he contented himself with putting the thumb of his right hand to his nose and spreading the fingers,—an ironical gesture he had acquired from his mother’s coachman; after which he ran to find his partner for the next quadrille.
But what details are these on which we are wasting time, when we know that interests of the highest order are moving, subterraneously, beneath the surface of the children’s ball.
Arriving from Ville d’Avray late in the afternoon, Sallenauve had brought Madame de l’Estorade ill news of Marie-Gaston. Under an appearance of resignation, he was gloomy, and, singular to say, he had not visited the grave of his wife,—as if he feared an emotion he might not have the power to master. It seemed to Sallenauve that his friend had come to the end of his strength, and that a mental prostration of the worst character was succeeding the over-excitement he had shown at his election. One thing reassured the new deputy, and enabled him to come to Paris for, at any rate, a few hours. A friend of Marie-Gaston, an English nobleman with whom he had been intimate in Florence, came out to see him, and the sad man greeted the new-comer with apparent joy.