“You are aware, madame, that my steeds do not travel like cab-horses. I feed them rather well, and they cost me so much that I can afford to make them gallop.”
“Baptiste,” Monsieur Destival called to his servant, who was leaving the room, “you will hitch up too, do you understand?”
“That’s the way,” muttered Baptiste, “no sooner out of the kitchen than I must go to the stable!”
“I say, Baptiste, while you’re about it, tell my little Tony to put the horse to my cabriolet,” said Dalville, smiling at the pompous air of La Thomassinière, who said, rubbing his hands:
“On my word, it’s very pleasant for each to have his own carriage; it’s very genteel; one is certain at all events that one is with comme il faut people. To be sure, you have only cabriolets, but everybody can’t have a calèche, a coupé and a landau, like me.”
“What, are you going too, Monsieur Dalville?” asked Madame Destival, with a most expressive glance at the young man; “this is polite, everybody abandons me!”
“It is a fact, my dear fellow,” said Destival, “that my wife relied on you to keep her company, and——”
“I never said that I relied on monsieur; most assuredly I should not have dreamed of saying such a thing!” said Emilie, interrupting her husband; “but as everybody else is going to Paris, I don’t see why I should stay here. Besides, you are to give a dinner this week, aren’t you, monsieur?”
“Yes, madame, a large dinner. I shall have some influential people,—government officials and distinguished artists. I count upon Monsieur and Madame de la Thomassinière, and upon friend Dalville too.”
Dalville bowed simply, but La Thomassinière replied: