When on this evening of her return to Cannes, she found herself sitting at the table in front of the Archduke, she easily divined that the dinner would not end without some of those ferocious words with which he relieved his ill temper. At the first glance she understood that he had another violent grievance against her. What? Had he already been informed by that infamous Judas, in his feline manner, of how she had conducted herself at the gambling-table the night before, and was he, the democratic prince, with one of his customary resumptions of pride, preparing to make her feel that such Bohemian manners were not becoming to their rank? Was he offended--this inconsistency would not have astonished her any more than the other--because she had stayed at Monte Carlo all the week, without sending a word, except the despatch to the _maître d'hôtel_ to announce her return. Her heart was so full of pain at the thought of her resolution that she felt that kind of insensibility which follows moral suffering. So she did not pay attention during the dinner to the fierce sallies with which the Archduke, addressing Madame Brion, abused in turn Monte Carlo and the women of fashion, the Frenchmen on the coast, and the foreign colony--the wealthy class, in short, and all society. The livery servants were moving silently about the table, and their knee-breeches, silk stockings, and powdered wigs lent a contrast of inexpressible irony to the words of the master of this princely house. The aide-de-camp, with a wheedling mixture of politeness and perfidy, replied to the witticisms of the Archduke in such a way as to exasperate them, while Madame Brion, growing more and more red, submitted to the assault of insolent sarcasms, with the idea that she was suffering for Ely, who scarcely paid the slightest attention to such whimsical outbursts as this:--