"Well! well! that's a joke, I suppose! how ugly you are! When you're out-at-elbows the way you sometimes are, you don't look any too much like a count yourself!"

Darena laughed heartily and tapped Malvina on the cheek, saying:

"Come, come, hold your tongue, and above all things behave decently, mesdames; in the country a mild sort of freedom is permissible, but at the Rocher de Cancale, and in the honorable company with which you are to dine, remember, my little shepherdesses, that if you are not discreet I shall be obliged to turn you out of the room."

"Bless my soul! we know how to behave, monsieur! Do you think we never go into swell society?"

"Why, I often dine with my friend and his brother, who's one of the biggest butchers in Paris!"

"And I sometimes keep my cousin's desk; she's a baker and sells pastry, and only gentlemen with canary-colored gloves come to her little place to eat."

"Very good, mesdames, very good; we are certain now that you are worthy to go into good society, and that you know how to behave decorously. Oh!

if Monsieur d'Hurbain had not come to dine with us! But he has come, for I see him and Monfreville getting out of the tilbury. We have arrived; come, my young marquis, hand out the ladies."

The carriage stopped and the door was opened; a porcupine's head appeared, surmounting a body clad in an old nut-colored box-coat, the collar of which was marred by some very extensive spots of grease. It was Monsieur Poterne, who had stepped forward to a.s.sist the ladies to alight.

Malvina drew back, crying:

"Great G.o.d! what sort of thing is that? An owl, a hedgehog?"

"It is my--my business agent," replied Darena; "he has looked to it that everything is properly prepared, and now he has come to a.s.sist you to alight; he is an extremely obliging man."

"He may possibly be obliging, but he is very ugly; isn't he, Rosina?"

"Yes. Oh! how stupid it is to be ugly like that!"

"And when you look from him to our charming little Monsieur Cherubin!"

"Gad! there's as much difference as there is between the sun and a flea!"

"Come, mesdames, get out of the carriage; you can talk upstairs."

The company soon a.s.sembled in the salon where the table was laid.

Messieurs d'Hurbain and Monfreville had arrived at the same time with the cab containing Cherubin and the dancers. The notary went to Darena and said in his ear:

"I trust, my dear count, that your dancers will behave properly here. I agree that by their graceful dancing and their bright eyes they have fascinated this young man; but he is still a mere child, who ought not to consort with ballet dancers----"

"Mon Dieu! don't be alarmed! You surprise me! It is due to me that this baby of sixteen years and a half consented to leave his nurse, and, instead of thanking me, you preach at me. Be of service to people--exert your imagination--so that they may lecture you afterwards!"

"I say, Darena," said Monfreville, scrutinizing Monsieur Poterne, who was sidling by the ladies, casting furtive glances at them, to which they replied by wry faces, "is that horribly dirty person a friend of yours? Do you expect us to dine with him? I must confess that I am not charmed by the prospect of his company. Who is the fellow? He looks very like a hawk."

"He is my steward."

"Ah! so you still have a steward? I thought that you had ceased to keep up an establishment."

"I have kept n.o.body else. This man looks after my affairs--he's an invaluable fellow for expedients."

"In that case, he would do well to devise an expedient for obtaining another coat."

"Well! aren't we ever going to dine?" asked Malvina, trying a _pas de seul_ in a corner of the salon.

"Yes, indeed, madame. Come, Monsieur Cherubin, be kind enough to take your seat."

Monsieur d'Hurbain was about to sit beside Cherubin, but Monfreville stopped him, saying in an undertone:

"Let these girls sit by our pupil, or else we may lose all the fruit of our trouble. I have been watching Cherubin among all these people; he sighs sometimes, and if he should have an attack of homesickness, he might absolutely insist on returning to his nurse, and we should have much difficulty in keeping him in Paris."

Monsieur d'Hurbain submitted; he allowed Mesdemoiselles Rosina and Clina to seat themselves on each side of Cherubin; Malvina, who was too late to obtain a seat next the young man, attempted to force Rosina to give up her chair to her and threatened to strike her; but a stern glance from Darena put an end to the dispute, and Mademoiselle Malvina seated herself at the other end of the table, humming:

"You shall not take him away, Nicolas! 'Tis I whom he will love, tradera!"

There was one vacant place, for Monsieur Poterne had ordered the table laid for nine, and, despite Darena's signs, the gentleman in the box-coat seemed to be on the point of taking the vacant chair, when the door opened and Monsieur Gerondif appeared, accompanied by Jasmin.

The professor bowed to the company, saying:

"I humbly salute the gentlemen, and I lay my homage at the feet of the ladies simultaneously."

"What is the man doing to our feet?" Malvina asked Darena, who was seated beside her, and whose only reply was a violent blow with his knee.

But Cherubin's face lighted up when he saw the new arrivals, and he cried:

"Ah! here you are, my dear tutor! How glad I am that you came to Paris too! What a pity that--that you----"

Cherubin did not finish the sentence; he was thinking of Louise, and something which he could not define told him that his innocent playmate would not be in her proper place in the company of those young ladies who danced so prettily. Monsieur d'Hurbain, who was greatly pleased by the tutor's arrival, because he saw therein an additional safeguard for Cherubin, saluted Monsieur Gerondif with a gracious smile, and said:

"You did well to follow your pupil, monsieur, and we relied upon your doing so. Pray take a seat at the table--there is a place awaiting you."

"Yes, yes, sit there, Monsieur Gerondif," cried Cherubin, pointing to the vacant seat. "And you, my good Jasmin, stand by me."

"I know my duty, monsieur le marquis, and I will take my proper station."

As he spoke, the old retainer put a napkin over his arm and planted himself behind Cherubin's chair. As for Monsieur Gerondif, he did not wait for the invitation to be repeated; he pushed Monsieur Poterne aside, took his seat at the table and swallowed the soup that was placed before him, crying:

"This is the banquet of Belshazzar! It is the feast of Eleusis! the wedding festival of Gamache! Never a.s.suredly was there a more sumptuous repast!"

"I say! that gentleman is talking in poetry," said Malvina to her neighbor.

"Yes," replied Darena, "I believe that it was monsieur who wrote the tragedy called the _Earthquake of Lisbon_."

Monsieur Gerondif smiled graciously at the count, murmuring with an air of modesty:

"I write verse rather easily, but I never wrote a tragedy, that is sure, certainly."

"I beg pardon, monsieur, I took you for Master Andre; you have much affinity with him.--But let us drink to monsieur le marquis's health, and to the pleasure of having him in Paris at last."

Darena's proposition was eagerly welcomed; the gla.s.ses were filled with madeira, and emptied in Cherubin's honor; the four dancers drank without heel-taps, and poured down madeira in a way to arouse an Englishman's envy.

Meanwhile Monsieur Poterne, having been cheated out of the seat to which he aspired, had decided to remain on his feet and to a.s.sist Jasmin, in preference to retiring. So he took his stand behind Darena; but while making a pretence of pa.s.sing him a plate now and then, he asked him in undertones for whatever he saw on the table. Darena pa.s.sed him well filled dishes, and Poterne, instead of serving them to the guests, turned his back and rapidly made away with the contents.