So long as the subject talked about was the last reception at the French Academy, these young girls (comrades in the class-room and at the weekly catechising) had been satisfied to discuss together their own little affairs, but after Colonel de Valdonjon began to talk complete silence reigned among them.  One might have heard the buzzing of a fly.  Their attention, however, was of little use.  Exclamations of oh! and ah! and protests more or less sincere drowned even the loud and somewhat hoarse voice of the Colonel.  The girls heard it only through a sort of general murmur, out of which a burst of astonishment or of dissent would occasionally break forth.  These outbreaks were all the curious group could hear distinctly.  They sniffed, as it were, at the forbidden fruit, but they longed to inhale the full perfume of the scandal that they felt was in the air.  That stout officer of cuirassiers, of whom some people spoke as “The Chatterbox,” took advantage of his profession to tell many an unsavory story which he had picked up or invented at his club.  He had come to Madame de Nailles’s reception with a brand-new concoction of falsehood and truth, a story likely to be hawked round Paris with great success for several weeks to come, though ladies on first hearing it would think proper to cry out that they would not even listen to it, and would pretend to look round them for their fans to hide their confusion.

The principal object of interest in this scandalous gossip was a valuable diamond bracelet, one of those priceless bits of jewelry seldom seen except in show-windows on the Rue de la Paix, intended to be bought only for presentation to princesses—­of some sort or kind.  Well, by an extraordinary, chance the Marquise de Versannes—­aye, the lovely Georgine de Versannes herself—­had picked up this bracelet in the street—­by chance, as it were.

“It so happened,” said the Colonel, “that I was at her mother-in-law’s, where she was going to dine.  She came in looking as innocent as you please, with her hand in her pocket.  ‘Oh, see what I have found!’ she cried.  ‘I stepped upon it almost at your door.’  And the bracelet was placed under a lamp, where the diamonds shot out sparkles fit to blind the old Marquise, and make that old fool of a Versannes see a thousand lights.  He has long known better than to take all his wife says for gospel—­but he tries hard to pretend that he believes her.  ‘My dear,’ he said, ’you must take that to the police.’—­’I’ll send it to-morrow morning,’ says the charming Georgine, ’but I wished to show you my good luck.’  Of course nobody came forward to claim the bracelet, and a month later Madame de Versannes appeared at the Cranfords’ ball with a brilliant diamond bracelet, worn like the Queen of Sheba’s, high up on her arm, near the shoulder, to hide the lack of sleeve.  This piece of finery, which drew everybody’s attention to the wearer, was the famous bracelet picked up in the street.  Clever of her!—­wasn’t it, now?”