The three windows of the salon where the guests danced opened into a very pretty garden, and the day being superb, many ladies and gentlemen stepped out for a chat or a stroll through the paths bordered with flowering shrubs during the intervals between the dances. Four or five men, chancing to meet near a big clump of lilacs, had paused to exchange the airy nothings that generally compose the conversation at such a gathering. Among this group were two men that merit attention. One, a man about thirty-five years of age, but already obese, with an extremely pompous, indolent, and supercilious manner and a lack-lustre eye, was the Comte de Mornand, the same man who had been mentioned at Commander Bernard's the evening before, when Olivier and Gerald were comparing their reminiscences of college life. M. de Mornand occupied a hereditary seat in the Chamber of Peers. The other, an intimate friend of the count, was a man of about the same age,--tall, slim, angular, a trifle round-shouldered, and also a little bald,--whose flat head, prominent and rather bloodshot eyes imparted an essentially reptilian character to his visage. This was the Baron de Ravil. Though his means of support were problematical in the extreme when compared with his luxurious style of living, the baron was still received in the aristocratic society in which his birth entitled him to a place, but never did any intriguer--we use the word in its lowest, most audacious sense--display more brazen effrontry or daring impudence. "Have you seen the lion of the ball?" inquired one of the men of the party, addressing M. de Mornand. "I have but just arrived, and have no idea to whom you refer," replied the count. "Why, the Marquis de Maillefort." "That cursed hunchback!" exclaimed M. de Ravil; "it is all his fault that this affair seems so unconscionably dull. His hideous presence is enough to cast a damper over any festivity." "How strange it is that the marquis appears in society for a few weeks, now and then, and then suddenly disappears again," remarked another member of the group. "I believe he is a manufacturer of counterfeit money and emerges from his seclusion, now and then, to put his spurious coin in circulation," remarked M. de Ravil. "This much is certain--incomprehensible as it appears--he actually loaned me a thousand franc note, which I shall never return, the other night, at the card-table. And what do you suppose the impertinent creature said as he handed it to me? 'It will afford me so much amusement to dun you for it, baron.' He need have no fears. He will amuse himself in that way a long time." "But all jesting aside, this marquis is a very peculiar man," remarked another member of the party. "His mother, the old Marquise de Maillefort, left him a very handsome fortune, but no one can imagine what he does with his money, for he lives very modestly." "I used to meet him quite frequently at poor Madame de Beaumesnil's."