"Then I will break this one too, if you give it back to me."
"Really, such gallantry—it puts all our Parisian gentlemen to the blush.—Look, Monsieur Vermoncey, isn't this a wonderfully lovely fan?"
Albert, whose face had worn a pronounced frown ever since the count presented the fan, barely glanced at it as he replied:
"I know very little about that sort of thing."
"It is impossible to imagine anything in better taste! Well, Monsieur Dahlborne, I will keep it; for it would really be too bad for you to break it."
"In that case, I am very glad that I broke the other," said the Swede, with a bow.
Albert found it difficult to restrain his vexation and anger; he could not keep his feet still, and seemed to be boiling on his chair. The pretty widow, who seemed to take great delight in the young man's jealousy and wrath, and who acted as if she desired to add to his misery, handed the fan to him again, saying:
"Pray look at it, monsieur, and admit that you have never seen anything so pretty and so refined."
This time the young man took the fan in his hands, held it up in the air, opened it as if to examine it more closely, then let it fall on the corner of his chair, whence it dropped to the floor. The dainty thing was too frail, too delicate, to resist that twofold fall, and it broke in several pieces.
Madame Baldimer gave a little shriek, which did not, however, indicate intense regret; indeed, it was possible that she expected that event and had looked forward to it. Count Dahlborne contented himself with picking up the pieces of the fan, which he coolly placed in his pocket.