"He is ill, it seems. The air of Paris still does not agree with him." Henri took a meditative pinch of snuff. "Apropos of d'Agenois, Anne, have you heard from Claude?"
"Claude! No. Surely he is not also returned?"
"Not he. He is in one of the English colonies at a town with some impossible Homeric name."
"Ah! I warned him that he would perish of ennui among those savages."
"On the contrary, he would appear, from a letter which I have received, to be very well amused. From his accounts he has met there some delightful people—a charming girl—by name—peste! I forget the name—"
"It is no matter. Claude among the bourgeois! Who could fancy it? Eh bien, let us dine."
The dinner was not protracted, for none of the three found it very comfortable. At its end Mme. de Châteauroux rose abruptly, snapping a finger for Fouchelet, and turning to her brother with the dismissing command, "Summon our chairs, Henri."
Mailly-Nesle went off obediently to see that the chairs and link-boys were ready, while the sisters adjusted their scarfs and caps. The brother handed them out, gave directions as to their destination, and himself started to return on foot to his hôtel. The ladies were going to Mme. de Tencin, who lived near by, not far from the Orleans Palais Royal. Though they had dined at an unconventionally late hour, it was not yet dark, the sunset just fading into a twilight that played in softening shadows about the old streets, with their high, gabled wooden houses, and the occasional buildings of stone. The streets were quiet, for all Paris was at supper. A few chairs, a chaise or two, and now and then a coach with some familiar coat-of-arms on its panels passed them. Foot-passengers were few. In crossing the Place du Palais Royal, however, Mme. de Châteauroux, looking out of the open window of her chair, encountered the glance of a priest going the opposite way. She bowed, and he uncovered with a respect less marked than usual, walking on without any attempt to speak to her. It was the Abbé de Bernis.
"Victorine is here, then," concluded madame. "I wonder how she will receive me?" And at the question a pang smote the Duchess's heart. Her fall was accomplished; but its consequences she had not yet endured.
Twilight rose rapidly now, and it was dark enough for the torches of the link-boys to be lighted by the time the slow-moving chairs stopped at their destination. The Hôtel de Tencin was not imposing from the outside. It was narrow and high, with a larger building close on either hand. Inside, however, it was furnished like a palace, and, indeed, most of the guests who entered it spent the greater part of their lives in or about the abode of royalty.