“Of bad taste and ostentation,” interrupted Madame de Lavardens.

“Not at all, mother, not at all; nothing startling, nothing loud.  It is admirably furnished, everything done with elegance and originality.  An incomparable conservatory, flooded with electric light; the buffet was placed in the conservatory under a vine laden with grapes, which one could gather by handfuls, and in the month of April!  The accessories of the cotillon cost, it appears, more than 400,000 francs.  Ornaments, ‘bon-bonnieres’, delicious trifles, and we were begged to accept them.  For my part I took nothing, but there were many who made no scruple.  That evening Puymartin told me Mrs. Scott’s history, but it was not at all like Monsieur de Larnac’s story.  Roger said that, when quite little, Mrs. Scott had been stolen from her family by some acrobats, and that her father had found her in a travelling circus, riding on barebacked horses and jumping through paper hoops.”

“A circus-rider!” cried Madame de Lavardens, “I should have preferred the beggar.”

“And while Roger was telling me this Family Herald romance, I saw approaching from the end of a gallery a wonderful cloud of lace and satin; it surrounded this rider from a wandering circus, and I admired those shoulders, those dazzling shoulders, on which undulated a necklace of diamonds as big as the stopper of a decanter.  They say that the Minister of Finance had sold secretly to Mrs. Scott half the crown diamonds, and that was how, the month before, he had been able to show a surplus of 1,500,000 francs in the budget.  Add to all this that the lady had a remarkably good air, and that the little acrobat seemed perfectly at home in the midst of all this splendor.”

Paul was going so far that his mother was obliged to stop him.  Before M. de Larnac, who was excessively annoyed and disappointed, he showed too plainly his delight at the prospect of having this marvellous American for a near neighbor.

The Abbe Constantin was preparing to return to Longueval, but Paul, seeing him ready to start, said: 

“No! no!  Monsieur le Cure, you must not think of walking back to Longueval in the heat of the day.  Allow me to drive you home.  I am really grieved to see you so cast down, and will try my best to amuse you.  Oh! if you were ten times a saint I would make you laugh at my stories.”

And half an hour after, the two—­the Cure and Paul—­drove side by side in the direction of the village.  Paul talked, talked, talked.  His mother was not there to check or moderate his transports, and his joy was overflowing.