When I returned to the drawing-room, the party was evidently about to break up.

Those who had grouped round the piano were now assembled round the refreshment-table.

The cardplayers had risen, and were settling or discussing gains and losses.

While I was searching for my hat, which I had somewhere mislaid, a poor gentleman, tormented by tic-doloureux, crept timidly up to me,--the proudest and the poorest of all the hidalgos settled on the Hill.

He could not afford a fee for a physician's advice; but pain had humbled his pride, and I saw at a glance that he was considering how to take a surreptitious advantage of social intercourse, and obtain the advice without paying the fee.