“Come, come, don’t excite yourself,” interposed Madame Octave de Camps, observing the convulsive and almost gasping tone of her friend’s voice.  “It is not reasonable to put yourself in such a state for a child’s speech.”

“She is better than the rest of us,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, taking Nais in her arms.

“Come, mamma, be reasonable,” said that young lady.

“She puts nothing in the world,” continued Madame de l’Estorade, “before her gratitude to her preserver, whereas her father and I have scarcely shown him any.”

“But, madame,” said Sallenauve, “you have courteously—­”

“Courteously!” interrupted Nais, shaking her pretty head with an air of disapproval; “if any one had saved my daughter, I should be different to him from that.”

“Nais,” said Madame de Camps, sternly, “children should be silent when their opinion is not asked.”

“What is the matter,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, joining the group.

“Nothing,” said Madame de Camps; “only a giddiness Renee had in dancing.”

“Is it over?”

“Yes, I am quite well again,” said Madame de l’Estorade.

“Then come and say good-night to Madame de Rastignac, who is preparing to take leave.”

In his eagerness to get to the minister’s wife, he forgot to give his own wife his arm.  Sallenauve was more thoughtful.  As they walked together in the wake of her husband, Madame de l’Estorade said,—­

“I saw you talking for a long time with Monsieur de Rastignac; did he practise his well-known seductions upon you?”

“Do you think he succeeded?” replied Sallenauve.

“No; but such attempts to capture are always disagreeable, and I beg you to believe that I was not a party to the plot.  I am not so violently ministerial as my husband.”

“Nor I as violently revolutionary as they think.”

“I trust that these annoying politics, which have already produced a jar between you and Monsieur de l’Estorade, may not disgust you with the idea of being counted among our friends.”

“That is an honor, madame, for which I can only be grateful.”

“It is not an honor but a pleasure that I hoped you would find in it,” said Madame de l’Estorade, quickly.  “I say, with Nais, if I had saved the life of a friend’s child, I should cease to be ceremonious with her.”

So saying, and without listening to his answer, she disengaged her arm quickly from that of Sallenauve, and left him rather astonished at the tone in which she had spoken.

In seeing Madame de l’Estorade so completely docile to the advice, more clever than prudent, perhaps, of Madame de Camps, the reader, we think, can scarcely be surprised.  A certain attraction has been evident for some time on the part of the frigid countess not only to the preserver of her daughter, but to the man who under such romantic and singular circumstances had come before her mind.  Carefully considered,