“Ah, ha!  Matame is a voman of dirty!” replied the baron, who was prone to time-honored remarks, which he took to be the small change of conversation.

“In every sense of the words,” replied the Countess.  “I am, in fact, five-and-thirty, and mean to set up a little passion—­”

“Oh, yes, my wife ruins me in curiosities and china images—­”

“She started that mania at an early age,” said the Marquis de Montriveau with a smile.

“Yes,” said La Baudraye, with a cold stare at the Marquis, whom he had known at Bourges, “you know that in ’25, ’26, and ’27, she picked a million francs’ worth of treasures.  Anzy is a perfect museum.”

“What a cool hand!” thought Monsieur de Clagny, as he saw this little country miser quite on the level of his new position.

But misers have savings of all kinds ready for use.

On the day after the vote on the Regency had passed the Chambers, the little Count went back to Sancerre for the vintage and resumed his old habits.

In the course of that winter, the Comtesse de la Baudraye, with the support of the Attorney-General to the Court of Appeals, tried to form a little circle.  Of course, she had an “at home” day, she made a selection among men of mark, receiving none but those of serious purpose and ripe years.  She tried to amuse herself by going to the Opera, French and Italian.  Twice a week she appeared there with her mother and Madame de Clagny, who was made by her husband to visit Dinah.  Still, in spite of her cleverness, her charming manners, her fashionable stylishness, she was never really happy but with her children, on whom she lavished all her disappointed affection.

Worthy Monsieur de Clagny tried to recruit women for the Countess’ circle, and he succeeded; but he was more successful among the advocates of piety than the women of fashion.

“And they bore her!” said he to himself with horror, as he saw his idol matured by grief, pale from remorse, and then, in all the splendor of recovered beauty, restored by a life of luxury and care for her boys.  This devoted friend, encouraged in his efforts by her mother and by the cure was full of expedient.  Every Wednesday he introduced some celebrity from Germany, England, Italy, or Prussia to his dear Countess; he spoke of her as a quite exceptional woman to people to whom she hardly addressed two words; but she listened to them with such deep attention that they went away fully convinced of her superiority.  In Paris, Dinah conquered by silence, as at Sancerre she had conquered by loquacity.  Now and then, some smart saying about affairs, or sarcasm on an absurdity, betrayed a woman accustomed to deal with ideas—­the woman who, four years since, had given new life to Lousteau’s articles.

This phase was to the poor lawyer’s hapless passion like the late season known as the Indian summer after a sunless year.  He affected to be older than he was, to have the right to befriend Dinah without doing her an injury, and kept himself at a distance as though he were young, handsome, and compromising, like a man who has happiness to conceal.  He tried to keep his little attentions a profound secret, and the trifling gifts which Dinah showed to every one; he endeavored to suggest a dangerous meaning for his little services.