After having listened to the numberless salutations with which his friends accosted him, M. de Brévannes said, laughingly,-- "Now I will try and reply, since you give me an opportunity at last, and my reply shall not be, by any means, a tedious one. I am just come from Lorraine, and I am a better husband than you give me credit for--I have brought my wife back to Paris with me." "Perhaps Madame de Brévannes might have thought you a better husband still if you had left her in Lorraine," said the domino; "but you are too jealous to do that." "Indeed!" replied M. de Brévannes, looking at the mask with curiosity; "I am jealous, am I?" "As jealous as obstinate! and that's the fact." "The fact is," said M. de Fierval, "that when this fellow, Brévannes, takes any thing in his head----" "Why, it stays there!" said M. de Brévannes, laughing: "I deserve to be a Breton. And since, charming mask, you know me so well, you must know my motto, 'vouloir c'est pouvoir' (to will is to be able to do). "And as you are afraid, that in her turn, your wife may also prove to you that _vouloir c'est pouvoir_, why you are as jealous of her as a tiger." "Jealous?--I? well, now you are praising me. I really do not deserve such an eulogium." "It is no eulogium, for you are as unfaithful as you are jealous; or, if you like it better, as haughty as you are inconstant. Oh! it was a fine thing to make a love-match, and marry a daughter of the middle classes! Poor Bertha Raimond! I am sure she pays dearly enough for what the fools call her elevation!" said the domino, with much irony. M. de Brévannes frowned almost imperceptibly; but the cloud passed quickly, and he added, gaily,-- "Charming mask, you are mistaken; my wife is the happiest of women, I am the happiest of men, and thus our _ménage_ offers no hold for the fangs of slander. But do not talk any more of one who was but a fashion of the year that is past." "You are too modest. You are always, at least, so says slander, the very pink of fashion. Would you rather that we should talk of your journey to Italy?" M. de Brévannes repressed a fresh impulse of impatience. The domino seemed to know precisely all the vulnerable points of the man she was mystifying. "Come, cruel mask," replied M. de Brévannes, "at least be generous, and immolate a few other victims. You seem to be very well informed, be so kind as tell me the news of the day. Who are the women most in vogue? do their adorers of last season still sigh at their feet? have they undergone with impunity the proofs of absence, summer, and travel?" "Well, I will have pity on you! or, rather, I will reserve you for a better opportunity," replied the domino. "You speak of fresh beauties! well, we were talking just now of the female who is most in fashion this winter--a handsome foreigner, the Princess de Hansfeld."