But he continued plunged in thought, racking his brains for excuses against his return home in the evening. The five carriages were rolling through a flat country along an interminable straight road bordered by fine trees. The country was bathed in a silvery-gray atmosphere. The ladies still continued shouting remarks from carriage to carriage behind the backs of the drivers, who chuckled over their extraordinary fares. Occasionally one of them would rise to her feet to look at the landscape and, supporting herself on her neighbor’s shoulder, would grow extremely excited till a sudden jolt brought her down to the seat again. Caroline Hequet in the meantime was having a warm discussion with Labordette. Both of them were agreed that Nana would be selling her country house before three months were out, and Caroline was urging Labordette to buy it back for her for as little as it was likely to fetch. In front of them La Faloise, who was very amorous and could not get at Gaga’s apoplectic neck, was imprinting kisses on her spine through her dress, the strained fabric of which was nigh splitting, while Amelie, perching stiffly on the bracket seat, was bidding them be quiet, for she was horrified to be sitting idly by, watching her mother being kissed. In the next carriage Mignon, in order to astonish Lucy, was making his sons recite a fable by La Fontaine. Henri was prodigious at this exercise; he could spout you one without pause or hesitation. But Maria Blond, at the head of the procession, was beginning to feel extremely bored. She was tired of hoaxing that blockhead of a Tatan Nene with a story to the effect that the Parisian dairywomen were wont to fabricate eggs with a mixture of paste and saffron. The distance was too great: were they never going to get to their destination? And the question was transmitted from carriage to carriage and finally reached Nana, who, after questioning her driver, got up and shouted: “We’ve not got a quarter of an hour more to go. You see that church behind the trees down there?” Then she continued: “Do you know, it appears the owner of the Château de Chamont is an old lady of Napoleon’s time? Oh, SHE was a merry one! At least, so Joseph told me, and he heard it from the servants at the bishop’s palace. There’s no one like it nowadays, and for the matter of that, she’s become goody-goody.” “What’s her name?” asked Lucy. “Madame d’Anglars.” “Irma d’Anglars—I knew her!” cried Gaga. Admiring exclamations burst from the line of carriages and were borne down the wind as the horses quickened their trot. Heads were stretched out in Gaga’s direction; Maria Blond and Tatan Nene turned round and knelt on the seat while they leaned over the carriage hood, and the air was full of questions and cutting remarks, tempered by a certain obscure admiration. Gaga had known her! The idea filled them all with respect for that far-off past.