“You would not have come,” she replied, laughing. “That is not nice of you.”
M. de Lasteyrie, who was generally most tolerant, whispered in her ear.... “If he had come in a workman’s blouse, I might have passed him ... but ... that!”
Jules Lasteyrie was to have taken Mme. Adam in to dinner.
“The only way to rehabilitate him, my dear friend,” she said, “is to give him the first place. I deprive you of it. But I am sure you will agree with me.”
The Marquis assumed his fine lordly air and replied: “You are right, the servants might neglect him. Besides, we shall see whether he understands le grand.”
The hostess took Gambetta’s arm. He was overwhelmed at being placed on her right. Lasteyrie sat on her left. Adam could not believe his eyes.
Hardly had they sat down at table when Gambetta, leaning towards Mme. Adam whispered—
“Madame, I shall never forget the lesson you have taught me.” Evidently he understood le grand.
Many another lesson was Juliette to teach her illustrious friend. In matters sartorial and social she was to find him an apt pupil. As Mme. d’Agoult had transformed the provincial young person into une grande dame, so Juliette was to turn the Provençal grocer, the political commercial traveller, into a man of the world.
When some ten years later she saw him at the opera faultlessly attired, with light gloves, a hat slightly tipped over one ear, a gardenia in his buttonhole, she felt proud of her handiwork.