“So it amuses you?” remarked Mme. de Marville. The question sent a cold chill through Pons; he felt a strong desire to slap the Presidente. “Why, my dear cousin, that is the way to hunt down a work of art. You are face to face with antagonists that dispute the game with you. It is craft against craft! A work of art in the hands of a Norman, an Auvergnat, or a Jew, is like a princess guarded by magicians in a fairy tale.” “And how can you tell that this is by Wat--what do you call him?” “Watteau, cousin. One of the greatest eighteenth century painters in France. Look! do you not see that it is his work?” (pointing to a pastoral scene, court-shepherd swains and shepherdesses dancing in a ring). “The movement! the life in it! the coloring! There it is--see!--painted with a stroke of the brush, as a writing-master makes a flourish with a pen. Not a trace of effort here! And, turn it over, look!--a ball in a drawing-room. Summer and Winter! And what ornaments! and how well preserved it is! The hinge-pin is gold, you see, and on cleaning it, I found a tiny ruby at either side.” “If it is so, cousin, I could not think of accepting such a valuable present from you. It would be better to lay up the money for yourself,” said Mme. de Marville; but all the same, she asked no better than to keep the splendid fan. “It is time that it should pass from the service of Vice into the hands of Virtue,” said the good soul, recovering his assurance. “It has taken a century to work the miracle. No princess at Court, you may be sure, will have anything to compare with it; for, unfortunately, men will do more for a Pompadour than for a virtuous queen, such is human nature.” “Very well,” Mme. de Marville said, laughing, “I will accept your present.--Cecile, my angel, go to Madeleine and see that dinner is worthy of your cousin.” Mme. de Marville wished to make matters even. Her request, made aloud, in defiance of all rules of good taste, sounded so much like an attempt to repay at once the balance due to the poor cousin, that Pons flushed red, like a girl found out in fault. The grain of sand was a little too large; for some moments he could only let it work in his heart. Cecile, a red-haired young woman, with a touch of pedantic affectation, combined her father’s ponderous manner with a trace of her mother’s hardness. She went and left poor Pons face to face with the terrible Presidente. “How nice she is, my little Lili!” said the mother. She still called her Cecile by this baby name. “Charming!” said Pons, twirling his thumbs. “I _cannot_ understand these times in which we live,” broke out the Presidente. “What is the good of having a President of the Court of Appeal in Paris and a Commander of the Legion of Honor for your father, and for a grandfather the richest wholesale silk merchant in Paris, a deputy, and a millionaire that will be a peer of France some of these days?”