"Monsieur Thomery awaits the Baroness in the small drawing-room: he has been waiting ten minutes."
"Very well. I am coming."
Madame de Vibray, whose movements were all harmonious grace, returned by way of the gallery to greet her guest. She paused on the threshold of the small drawing-room, smiling graciously.
Framed in the dark drapery of the heavy door-curtains, the soft light from globes of ground glass falling on her, the Baroness de Vibray appeared a very attractive woman still. Her figure had retained its youthful slenderness, her neck, white as milk, was as round and fresh as a girl's; and had the hair about her forehead and temples not been turning grey—the Baroness wore it powdered, a piece of coquettish affection on her part—she would not have looked a day more than thirty.
Monsieur Thomery rose hastily, and advanced to meet her. He kissed her hand with a gallant air:
"My dear Mathilde," he declared with an admiring glance, "you are decidedly an exquisite woman!"
The Baroness replied by a glance, in which there was something ambiguous, something of ironical mockery:
"How are you, Norbert?" she asked in an affectionate tone.... "And those pains?"
They seated themselves on a low couch, and began to discuss their respective aches and pains in friendly fashion. Whilst listening to his complaints, Madame de Vibray could not but admire his remarkable vigour, his air of superb health: his looks gave the lie to his words.
About fifty-five, Monsieur Norbert Thomery seemed to be in the plenitude of his powers; his premature baldness was redeemed by the vivacity of his dark brown eyes, also by his long, thick moustache, probably dyed. He looked like an old soldier. He was the last of the great Thomery family who, for many generations, had been sugar refiners. His was a personality well known in Parisian Society; always first at his office or his factories, as soon as night fell he became the man of the world, frequenting fashionable drawing-rooms, theatrical first-nights, official receptions, and balls in the aristocratic circles of the faubourg Saint-Germain.