This conversation took place a few days before that night of first performance of The Devil’s Betrothed, when the whole orchestra noticed how ill Pons was looking.  But by that time all the circle of dinner-givers who were used to seeing Pons’ face at their tables, and to send him on errands, had begun to ask each other for news of him, and uneasiness increased when it was reported by some who had seen him that he was always in his place at the theatre.  Pons had been very careful to avoid his old acquaintances whenever he met them in the streets; but one day it so fell out that he met Count Popinot, the ex-cabinet minister, face to face in the bric-a-brac dealer’s shop in the new Boulevard Beaumarchais.  The dealer was none other than that Monistrol of whom Pons had spoken to the Presidente, one of the famous and audacious vendors whose cunning enthusiasm leads them to set more and more value daily on their wares; for curiosities, they tell you, are growing so scarce that they are hardly to be found at all nowadays.

“Ah, my dear Pons, how comes it that we never see you now?  We miss you very much, and Mme. Popinot does not know what to think of your desertion.”

“M. le Comte,” said the good man, “I was made to feel in the house of a relative that at my age one is not wanted in the world.  I have never had much consideration shown me, but at any rate I had not been insulted.  I have never asked anything of any man,” he broke out with an artist’s pride.  “I have often made myself useful in return for hospitality.  But I have made a mistake, it seems; I am indefinitely beholden to those who honor me by allowing me to sit at table with them; my friends, and my relatives. . . .  Well and good; I have sent in my resignation as smellfeast.  At home I find daily something which no other house has offered me—­a real friend.”

The old artist’s power had not failed him; with tone and gesture he put such bitterness into the words, that the peer of France was struck by them.  He drew Pons aside.

“Come, now, my old friend, what is it?  What has hurt you?  Could you not tell me in confidence?  You will permit me to say that at my house surely you have always met with consideration—­”

“You are the one exception,” said the artist.  “And besides, you are a great lord and a statesman, you have so many things to think about.  That would excuse anything, if there were need for it.”

The diplomatic skill that Popinot had acquired in the management of men and affairs was brought to bear upon Pons, till at length the story of his misfortunes in the President’s house was drawn from him.

Popinot took up the victim’s cause so warmly that he told the story to Mme. Popinot as soon as he went home, and that excellent and noble-natured woman spoke to the Presidente on the subject at the first opportunity.  As Popinot himself likewise said a word or two to the President, there was a general explanation in the family of Camusot de Marville.