There were present around the table the Count and Countess d'Arlincourt; the old Chevalier de Creux; the witty Madame Diane de Rémur; the Count de Blois, dressed in the very latest and most exact fashion; and the Marquis de Lacheville, with the pallor of recent illness on his face. At the lower end of the board sat a young poet who was riding on his first wave of popularity; and next to him was a philosopher.
The guests, having finished the dessert, were lingering over a choice vintage from the marquis's cellar.
The host, leaning back in his chair with half-closed eyes, listened carelessly to the hum of conversation while he toyed with a few sugared almonds.
"And so you think, chevalier," said the Countess d'Arlincourt in reply to a remark by the old nobleman, "that our troublesome times are not yet over?"
"Not yet, my dear countess, nor will they be over for a long time to come."
"Oh, how pessimistic you are, chevalier; for my part I do not see how affairs can be worse than they have been for the last year."
"For a longer period than that," remarked her husband, the Count d'Arlincourt.
"Well, I remember particularly, it was a year ago when you first told me that you could not afford to make me a present of a diamond crescent to wear in my hair at the Duchess de Montmorenci's fancy dress-ball. You had never used that word to me before."
"You have been extremely fortunate," said the Chevalier de Creux, turning a pair of small, bright eyes upon the countess and speaking with just the slightest accent of sarcasm. "Even longer ago than a year, many persons were in need of other necessities than diamonds."
"Oh, yes, I know," interrupted the countess hastily, anxious to show that she was not as ignorant as the chevalier's tone implied,—"bread. Why don't they give the people enough bread? It is a very simple demand, and things would then be well."