There were present around the table the Count and Countess d'Arlincourt; the old Chevalier de Creux; the witty Madame Diane de Rémur; the Count de Blois, dressed in the very latest and most exact fashion; and the Marquis de Lacheville, with the pallor of recent illness on his face. At the lower end of the board sat a young poet who was riding on his first wave of popularity; and next to him was a philosopher. The guests, having finished the dessert, were lingering over a choice vintage from the marquis's cellar. The host, leaning back in his chair with half-closed eyes, listened carelessly to the hum of conversation while he toyed with a few sugared almonds. "And so you think, chevalier," said the Countess d'Arlincourt in reply to a remark by the old nobleman, "that our troublesome times are not yet over?" "Not yet, my dear countess, nor will they be over for a long time to come." "Oh, how pessimistic you are, chevalier; for my part I do not see how affairs can be worse than they have been for the last year." "For a longer period than that," remarked her husband, the Count d'Arlincourt. "Well, I remember particularly, it was a year ago when you first told me that you could not afford to make me a present of a diamond crescent to wear in my hair at the Duchess de Montmorenci's fancy dress-ball. You had never used that word to me before." "You have been extremely fortunate," said the Chevalier de Creux, turning a pair of small, bright eyes upon the countess and speaking with just the slightest accent of sarcasm. "Even longer ago than a year, many persons were in need of other necessities than diamonds." "Oh, yes, I know," interrupted the countess hastily, anxious to show that she was not as ignorant as the chevalier's tone implied,--"bread. Why don't they give the people enough bread? It is a very simple demand, and things would then be well." "My dear child," put in Madame de Rémur, "it would do no good to give them bread to-day; they would be hungry again to-morrow. The trouble is with the finances. When they are set right everything will go well; and the people can buy all the bread they want, and you can have your diamond crescent," and the speaker smiled at the chevalier and shrugged her white shoulders. "Yes, but," persisted the countess, raising her pretty eyebrows, "when _will_ the finances be set right? The people cannot go forever without bread." "Nor can women go forever without diamonds," laughed Madame de Rémur. "Women with your eyes, fair Diane, have no need of other diamonds," said the Marquis de St. Hilaire debonairely. The lady smiled graciously at the compliment. She was a young and attractive widow and she looked at St. Hilaire not unkindly.