"You are from Paris? All the way from Paris?"
"Yes, from Paris," said Aline rather wearily.
"Ciel! That is a distance to come. Are you not tired?"
"Just a little, perhaps."
"Paris is a big place, is it not? I have never been there, but my father has. He left the inn for a month last year, and went to Paris, and saw all the sights. Yes, he went to the Convention Hall, and heard the Deputies speak. Would any one believe there were so many of them? Four hundred and more, he said. Every one did not believe him,—Gargoulet even laughed, and spat on the floor,—but my father is a very truthful man, and not at all boastful. He would not say such a thing unless he had seen it, for he does not believe everything that he is told—oh no! For my part, I believed him, and Jean Jacques too. But imagine then, four hundred Deputies all making speeches!"
Aline could not help laughing.
"Yes, I believe there are quite as many as that. My husband is one of them, you know."
"Seigneur!" exclaimed Madelon. "I said so. Where is that great stupid of mine? I said the Citizen was a Deputy—at once I said it!"
"Why, how did you guess?"
"Oh, by the fine tricolour sash," said Madelon naively; "and then there is a look about him, is there not? Do you not think he has the air of being a Deputy?"