"'Take care!'" exclaimed Pommerive, in his former falsetto, imitating Madame de Pënâfiel's cry of alarm. "'Take care! Hold his horse! Ah, heavens, the poor man! I have killed him! It was my fault! Save him, save him! Help, help! If he is killed I shall never forgive myself! Ismaël! Ismaël!' Till at last," said M. de Pommerive, "the marquise was so beside herself that she was half hanging out of the window of her carriage, waving her arms, and stretching them out towards her dear Turk, with such an accompaniment of sobs and stifled cries that people took her for a woman who had suddenly become insane. She was as pale as death, her features were all convulsed, and, with her eyes starting almost out of her head and streaming with tears, you can imagine what she looked like and what a sensation she created. All that might have passed for overexcitement or weak nerves, and thus have simply appeared ridiculous, if we who knew the whole story did not know it to be worse than ridiculous, it was abominable; for since Madame de Pënâfiel had braved public opinion so far as to come and look on at the race, of which she knew herself to be the cause, she might have behaved decently, and not made a spectacle of herself in such an indecorous way, and for whom, pray? _Bon Dieu_, for a devil of a Turk, that five minutes before she didn't know from Eve nor from Adam!" Every word of De Pommerive's story was revoltingly stupid and false; there were twenty people, at least, who could deny it with as much certitude as I. But when it came to calumniating and belittling Madame de Pënâfiel, from whatever motive I knew not, these absurdities would probably find an echo among people of the best society, for calumny needs no foundation, and can feed upon itself. "Well, what have you got to say to it? Is it not abominable?" said De Pommerive, snorting with indignation, and panting with fatigue from his efforts in mimicry and the strain on his voice. "I have got to say this, my dear M. de Pommerive," said I, "that your information is entirely unreliable, and your story utterly false. I am simply astounded, that a man of your sense and experience could have put the least particle of faith in such a romance." "How is that?" "I was at the race; by accident I was standing very close to Madame de Pënâfiel's carriage and I saw her all the time." "Very well, and what then?" "Madame de Pënâfiel did what any other woman would have done in her place; she simply asked, in an indifferent sort of way, the name of the man whose striking costume had necessarily attracted the attention of every one, and when the Egyptian's horse reared, and he was in danger of being thrown off backwards and killed, by having the horse fall on him, Madame de Pënâfiel was naturally overcome with terror for a minute or so. She covered her eyes with her hand, and threw herself back in her carriage without saying a word; this is the exact and entire truth."