'You see that I was right in setting my face against last night's affair,' remarked the Baron. 'Here we have another man of letters brought out. He has been here, and will call on others. He'll call again, no doubt, and then he'll be invited here and there. People will talk before him as they do before you and me, without thinking that on leaving your house he will, out of sheer vanity, go and retail the stories he has heard here in some _café_ or newspaper office. And then the Society dames will be astonished to find themselves figuring in the columns of some scurrilous sheet or in an up-to-date novel. To invite writers into the drawing-room is one of the latest and maddest freaks of so-called Society. We wrong them by robbing them of their time, and they return the injury by libelling us. I was told the other day that the daughter of one of this gentleman's colleagues, who helps her papa in his books, was heard to say: "We never go anywhere without bringing home at least two pages of useful notes." I myself cannot understand this mania for talking into phonographs--and such silly, lying phonographs, too, as they are!' 'Ah!' exclaimed Suzanne, taking the Baron's hand in hers, and looking up at him with an admiration that was too marked not to be sincere, 'how fortunate I am in having you to guide me through life! What correct and clear judgment you have!' 'Oh! merely a little gumption, that's all,' replied Desforges, with a shake of the head; 'that will prevent one from committing nine-tenths of the bad actions that are really only follies. All my wisdom of life is to try and get what I can out of what is left me--and what is left me is precious little. Do you know that I shall be fifty-six this week, Suzanne?' She shook her pretty head, and came closer to him as he stopped in his march up and down the room. With a look of ingenuousness that might have been worn either by an accomplished wanton or a big girl asking her father for a kiss she brought first her cheek with its pretty dimple, and then the corner of her sweet mouth, under the Baron's lips. 'Come,' she said, 'don't you want any tea? It's a bad sign when you begin to talk about your age; you must have upset yourself either in the _Chambre_ or at some Board meeting.'