"Especially," continued Ménard, who had assumed a more important air since he had learned that their new acquaintance was a former dealer in wines, "especially as Monsieur le Comte de Montreville, my pupil, is of an exceedingly romantic turn."
"Ah! he is like me! he is just like me!" said the lady, with a sigh addressed to Dubourg; "I care for nothing but the romantic. I am mad over ghosts and elves—am I not, Monsieur Chambertin?"
"Yes, my wife has always been very fond of spirits," Monsieur Chambertin replied, with a smile.
"She had no lack of them with you," rejoined Dubourg.
"True, I had them all the way from twenty-four degrees to seventy."
"If madame should ever come to Poland," said Dubourg, "I trust that she will not fail to pass a few days at my castle of Krapach. She will see phantoms of all colors there; it's not so cheerful a place of residence as my castle at Cracow, but I would not part with it for two millions! And yet, it brings me nothing but snow; but I have my reasons for being attached to it—eh, Monsieur Ménard?"
"Peste! I should say so! a castle where you have entertained——"
"Hush, be still, Ménard; that doesn't interest Monsieur and Madame Chambertin."
"I beg your pardon," said Chambertin, bowing once more; "we are too flattered to make the acquaintance of a Polish nobleman—for I think that monsieur le baron is a Pole?"
"From my birth," replied Dubourg, turning his head away so that Ménard might have an opportunity to say to them in an undertone: