All his attentions were reserved for Mademoiselle de Corandeuil and Aline, who listened with unconcealed pleasure to the man whom she regarded as her saviour; for the young girl's remembrance of the danger which she had run excited her more and more.
After supper Mademoiselle de Corandeuil proposed a game of whist to M.
de Gerfaut, whose talent for the game had made a lasting impression upon her.

The poet accepted this diversion with an enthusiasm equal to that he had shown for hunting, and quite as sincere too.

Christian and his sister--a little gamester in embryo, like all of her family--completed the party, while Clemence took up her work and listened with an absentminded air to Marillac's conversation.

It was in vain for the latter to call art and the Middle Ages to his aid, using the very quintessence of his brightest speeches--success did not attend his effort.

After the end of an hour, he had a firm conviction that Madame de Bergenheim was, everything considered, only a woman of ordinary intelligence and entirely unworthy of the passion she had inspired in his friend.
"Upon my soul," he thought, "I would a hundred times rather have Reine Gobillot for a sweetheart.