At the foot of one of the towers, they found themselves in close proximity to our two travellers, who were just about to enter the ruins. Dubourg stopped, to allow the lady to go first; her husband paid him the same attention, and even bowed low to Ménard. These ceremonies duly performed, they entered into conversation.
"Does monsieur visit our country as an observer?" the husband asked Dubourg.
"Yes, monsieur; I am travelling—for my pleasure—with a friend of mine, the Comte de Montreville, of whom you may have heard, and Monsieur Ménard, a distinguished professor of literature and a Hellenist of the first order, who improvises poetry like an angel—especially at dessert."
The gentleman bowed to Ménard, who looked like an idiot when Dubourg said that he improvised readily, but he was very careful not to contradict him, none the less.
"Do you live in this province, monsieur?" queried Dubourg.
"Yes, monsieur," the lady replied, with a gracious smile. "We live two leagues and a half from here, at Allevard, where my husband bought a superb estate when he retired from the wine trade."
At this point, the gentleman nudged his wife, but she continued, apparently without noticing the hint:
"A trade we carried on for our pleasure, for my husband has always had a very handsome fortune; but one must do something."
"What do you say, madame? For my own part, I have a great esteem for trade, especially the wine trade. Certainly Noah didn't plant the vine with the idea that we should eat nothing but dried grapes. Gideon, a Hebrew captain, threshed his own grain, Saul was a cowherd, David a shepherd, Cincinnatus ploughed his own fields, Pope Sixtus V kept pigs, and Urban IV was once a cobbler; so I can see nothing surprising in the fact that your husband once sold wine."
"Surely not, monsieur," said the husband, bowing low to Dubourg.—"He's a noble philosopher," he whispered to his wife.