“Since you wish it, I will leave you, then,” said the Duchess, “and we thank you for giving us your society this evening.  My brother will accompany you to your carriage.”

When Zibeline’s vehicle drove up to the entrance in its turn, the General conducted his charge to the door of a marvellously equipped brougham, to which was harnessed a carriage-horse of powerful frame, well suited to the kind of vehicle he drew.

A thaw had begun, not yet transforming the gutters into yellow torrents rushing toward the openings of the sewer, but covering the streets with thick, black mud, over which the wheels rolled noiselessly.

“Your carriage is late, is it not?” said Zibeline, after the General had handed her into the brougham.

“My carriage?” said the General.  “Behold it!”

He pointed to a passing fiacre, at the same time hailing the driver.

“Don’t call him.  I will take you home myself,” said Zibeline, as if such a suggestion were the most natural thing in the world.

“You know that in France it is not the custom,” said the General.

“What!  Do you bother yourself with such things at your age?”

“If my age seems to you a sufficient guaranty, that is different.  I accept your invitation.”

“To the Hotel de Montgeron,” said Zibeline to her footman.

“I never shall forget your sister’s kindness to me,” she continued, as the carriage rolled away.  “She fulfils my idea of the great lady better than any other woman I have seen.”

“You may be proud of her friendship,” said Henri.  “When once she likes a person, it is forever.  I am like her in that respect.  Only I am rather slow in forming friendships.”

“And so am I.”

“That is obvious, else you would have been married ere this.”

“No doubt—­to some one like young Desvanneaux, perhaps.  You are very flattering!  If you think that I would sacrifice my independence for a man like that—­”

“But surely you do not intend to remain unmarried.”

“Perhaps I shall—­if I do not meet my ideal.”

“All women say that, but they usually change their minds in the end.”

“Mine is one and indivisible.  If I do not give all I give nothing.”

“And shall you wait patiently until your ideal presents himself?”

“On the contrary, I am always looking for him.”

“Did you come to Europe for that purpose?”

“For that and for nothing else.”

“And suppose, should you find your ideal, that he himself raises obstacles?”

“I shall try to smooth them away.”

“Do you believe, then, that the power of money is irresistible?”

“Far from it!  A great fortune is only a trust which Providence has placed in our hands, in order that we may repair, in its name, the injustices of fate.  But I have another string to my bow.”

“What is it?”