"Ah! my dear," whispered Madame Chambertin to her husband, "what a happy idea! what a chance!"
"I will seize it!" he replied; and he planted himself in front of Dubourg, with his feet in the third position.—"Monsieur le baron, if I wasn't afraid of presuming too far, if you would deign to accept a plain country gentleman's dinner, Madame Chambertin and I would be overjoyed to have at our table a distinguished nobleman and a professor of literature. My cabriolet is waiting for us close by, with Lunel, my jockey; we shall be at Allevard in an hour, and my cabriolet will take monsieur le baron to Grenoble this evening."
"Really, Monsieur de Chambertin, you are too kind," replied Dubourg, with a bow.
"He called me De Chambertin!" said the ex-tradesman to his wife.
"I heard him."
"Do you suppose he means to make me a knight?"
"I believe he's quite capable of making you something."
"I am almost tempted to accept your invitation," said Dubourg; "it will afford me the pleasure of becoming better acquainted with some most delightful people.—What do you say, my dear Ménard? Will it make Montreville anxious? Do you think that we might accept Monsieur de Chambertin's invitation to dinner?"
"Yes, certainly we may, monsieur le baron," replied Ménard, who was so excited by the prospect that he took from his pocket the paper napkin in which the carcass of the chicken was wrapped, and wiped his face with it, thinking that it was his handkerchief, and oblivious to the fact that he was besmearing himself with chicken jelly; but Monsieur and Madame Chambertin were in the seventh heaven and saw nothing of all that. To take home with them to dinner a great Polish nobleman, a palatine! who had put a de before monsieur's name, and who made eyes at madame—that was quite enough to turn their heads.
"The cabriolet will never hold four," said madame.