"You are wrong, Monsieur Desvanneaux; it is that of Moliere!"
"I beg your pardon!—I am standing so far below it! I, too, have on my bureau a bust of our great Poquelin, but Madame Desvanneaux thinks that this author's style is somewhat too pornographic, and has ordered me to replace his profane image by the more edifying one of our charitable patron, Saint Vincent de Paul."
"Is it to tell me of your family jars that you honor me with this visit?" said Eugenie.
"No, indeed! It was rather to escape from them, dear Mademoiselle! But alas! my visit has also another object: to release you from the promise you were so kind as to make me regarding the matter of our kermess; a project now unfortunately rendered futile by that Zibeline!"
"Otherwise called 'Mademoiselle de Vermont.'"
"I prefer to call her Zibeline—that name is better suited to a courtesan."
"You are very severe toward her!"
"I can not endure hypocrites!" naively replied the worthy man.
"She appeared to me to be very beautiful, however," continued Eugenie Gontier, in order to keep up the conversation on the woman who she felt instinctively was her rival.
"Beautiful! Not so beautiful as you," rejoined M. Desvanneaux, gallantly. "She is a very ambitious person, who throws her money at our heads, the better to humiliate us."