The marchioness rather puzzled the magistrate the first time he was admitted to her presence.  On his second visit, she amused him very much; for which reason, he came again.  But after a while she no longer amused him, though he still continued a faithful and constant visitor to the rose-coloured boudoir wherein she passed the greater part of her life.

Madame d’Arlange conceived a violent friendship for him, and became eloquent in his praises.

“A most charming young man,” she declared, “delicate and sensible!  What a pity he is not born!” (Her ladyship meant born of noble parentage, but used the phrase as ignoring the fact of the unfortunates who are not noble having been born at all) “One can receive him though, all the same; his forefathers were very decent people, and his mother was a Cottevise who, however, went wrong.  I wish him well, and will do all I can to push him forward.”

The strongest proof of friendship he received from her was, that she condescended to pronounce his name like the rest of the world.  She had preserved that ridiculous affectation of forgetfulness of the names of people who were not of noble birth, and who in her opinion had no right to names.  She was so confirmed in this habit, that, if by accident she pronounced such a name correctly, she immediately repeated it with some ludicrous alteration.  During his first visit, M. Daburon was extremely amused at hearing his name altered every time she addressed him.  Successively she made it Taburon, Dabiron, Maliron, Laliron, Laridon; but, in three months time, she called him Daburon as distinctly as if he had been a duke of something, and a lord of somewhere.

Occasionally she exerted herself to prove to the worthy magistrate that he was a nobleman, or at least ought to be.  She would have been happy, if she could have persuaded him to adopt some title, and have a helmet engraved upon his visiting cards.

“How is it possible,” said she, “that your ancestors, eminent, wealthy, and influential, never thought of being raised from the common herd and securing a title for their descendants?  Today you would possess a presentable pedigree.—­”

“My ancestors were wise,” responded M. Daburon.  “They preferred being foremost among their fellow-citizens to becoming last among the nobles.”

Upon which the marchioness explained, and proved to demonstration, that between the most influential and wealthy citizen and the smallest scion of nobility, there was an abyss that all the money in the world could not fill up.

They who were so surprised at the frequency of the magistrate’s visits to this celebrated “relic of the past” did not know that lady’s granddaughter, or, at least, did not recollect her; she went out so seldom!  The old marchioness did not care, so she said, to be bothered with a young spy who would be in her way when she related some of her choice anecdotes.

Claire d’Arlange was just seventeen years old.  She was extremely graceful and gentle in manner, and lovely in her natural innocence.  She had a profusion of fine light brown hair, which fell in ringlets over her well-shaped neck and shoulders.  Her figure was still rather slender; but her features recalled Guide’s most celestial faces.  Her blue eyes, shaded by long lashes of a hue darker than her hair, had above all an adorable expression.