"Fritz--do you remember him?"
"Certainly. The only Malzin now left, a very amiable lad who unfortunately made an impossible marriage."
"Yes, he married an actress, and just at the time when every one else was tired of ...."
"Georges!" exclaimed Oswald frowning and glancing towards Gabrielle. He was evidently of the opinion that such things should not be mentioned in the presence of young girls.
"Hm--hm," muttered Georges, "and he has accepted the post of Capriani's private secretary."
"Frightful!" exclaimed Oswald.
"He must have become morally corrupt to some degree, before he could make up his mind to submit to such a humiliation," interposed Truyn indignantly.
"Poor devil!" said Oswald.
"What would you have?" the philosophic Georges remarked and hummed ironically the air of 'Garde la reine.' "Ce n'est pas toujours les mêmes qui ont l'assiette au beurre. I tell you it is all up with us."
All preserved a melancholy silence for a while, then Truyn favoured the party with a few grand political aphorisms, and Oswald at last said to himself perfectly calmly, and as if impromptu, "Gabrielle and Capriani's son!"