and how she cracks them—­crack! one little bite—­and what pretty little teeth!  She is very pretty even while eating—­an important thing.  It’s very rare to find women who remain pretty while eating and sleeping, very rare.  Little Adelaide, the red-headed one, you remember, ate stupidly.  And this one over there eats brightly; she eats—­crack! another nut—­and she looks at me on the sly.  I can see that she looks at me.  All goes well, all goes well!”

In truth, all did go well.  At Montbard, 12.32, Raoul was presented to Mme. Derame, who, on hearing the name of Chamblard, had a little shiver—­the shiver of a mother who has a young daughter to marry, and who says to herself, “Oh, what a splendid match!” Her husband had often spoken to her of young Chamblard.

“Ah,” he used to say to her, “what a marriage for Martha!  We speak of it sometimes before and after our piquet, Chamblard and I; but the young man is restive—­doesn’t yet wish to settle down.  It would be such a good thing—­he is richer than we.  Chamblard is once, twice, three times richer!  And Martha isn’t easy to marry; she has already refused five or six desirable matches on all sorts of pretexts.  They didn’t please her:  they were too old, they had no style, they didn’t live in fashionable neighborhoods, she didn’t wish to go into sugar, or cotton, or wine—­or anything, in short.  She would accept none other than a young husband, and not too serious.  She must have a very rich man who did nothing and loved pleasure.”

How well young Chamblard answered to that description!  When there was question of doing nothing, Raoul showed real talent.  As soon as one talked horses, dogs, carriages, hats, dresses, jewelry, races, fencing, skating, cooking, etc., he showed signs of the rarest and highest competence.

So, as there was general conversation, Raoul was very brilliant.  In the neighborhood of Chalons-sur-Saone (3.10), while relating how he, Chamblard, had invented a marvellous little coupe, he did not say that:  that coupe had been offered by him to Mlle. Juliette Lorphelin, of the ballet corps at the Folies-Bergere.  This coupe was a marvel; besides, it was very well known; it was called the Chamblard coupe.

“Small,” he said, “very small.  A coupe ought always to be small.”  But what a lot of things in such a small space:  a drawer for toilet necessaries, a secret box for money and jewelry, a clock, a thermometer, a barometer, a writing-shelf—­and that was not all!

He became animated, and grew excited in speaking of his invention.  Martha listened to him eagerly.

“When you pull up the four wooden shutters you naturally find yourself in the dark; but the four shutters are mirrors, and as soon as one has placed a finger on a little button hidden under the right-hand cushion, six little crystal balls, ingeniously scattered in the tufting of the blue satin of the coupe, become electric lights.  The coupe is turned into a little lighted boudoir; and not only for five minutes—­no, but for an hour, two hours, if one wishes it; there is a storage-battery under the seat.  When I submitted this idea to my carriage-maker he was smitten with envy and admiration.”