Perhaps someone had seen him with the Baroness Decker, at whose house at Viroflay he sometimes spent a day or so.

Vandeuvres's sole vengeance was an abrupt question: "Tell me, where have you been straying to?
Your elbow is covered with cobwebs and plaster." "My elbow," he muttered, slightly disturbed.

"Yes indeed, it's true.
A speck or two, I must have come in for them on my way down from my office." Several people were taking their departure.

It was close on midnight.
Two footmen were noiselessly removing the empty cups and the plates with cakes.

In front of the hearth the ladies had re-formed and, at the same time, narrowed their circle and were chatting more carelessly than before in the languid atmosphere peculiar to the close of a party.