Upon this occasion her guests thoroughly fulfilled her expectations, with the exception of the youngest of the party. Stéphanie de Sartines, like a spoiled child, had importuned her father to allow her to accept Madame de Salgues’s invitation; but having gained her point, she sat absorbed and silent, refusing to eat or to speak, and devoting herself to the contemplation of her idolized friend Clémence, from whom she was so soon to be separated. Ivan pitied the sad-faced little girl, and remembering her exploits at their first meeting, sought to console her with the most tempting of bonbons and preserved fruits; but he could elicit nothing beyond a melancholy “No, thank you, monsieur.” “You should say M. le Prince, my daughter,” her father corrected. “En Russie tout faquin est prince,”[60] observed the audacious Emile to his neighbour, M. de Cranfort. The latter, though disposed to regard Ivan in the light of a successful rival, resented the discourtesy of Emile, and showed it by asking coldly, “What do you say, sir?” “Don’t you know the story? Before the war broke out the Czar sent Prince Tufaquin as ambassador to the court of the Emperor, who, during their first interview, called him nothing but ‘Monsieur.’ One of the bystanders afterwards told him of the title borne by the envoy. ‘J’ignorais qu’en Russie _tout faquin_ est prince,’ was his answer.” “General Buonaparte was a parvenu,” said M. de Cranfort; “therefore it was not altogether his fault if he mistook rudeness for wit.” Emile “knew when he was beaten,” perhaps because he was not an Englishman; so he turned from M. de Cranfort to Stéphanie, whom he heard deploring that Prince Ivan was going to take Clémence away from them into Russia, where she would be frozen to death in the long cold winter, or eaten by the bears. He bent over her with a comic air of gallantry, and prayed her to be comforted. “_I_ am infinitely more devoted to you than Mademoiselle Clémence could ever be,” he said; “and, mademoiselle, _I_ am not going to Russia.” But he was scarcely more fortunate here. “Of course you are not,” returned the young lady sharply, her dark eyes flashing. “I heard a gentleman tell my father that the Czar is inviting all manner of clever, capable people to go to Russia; but for any one who is--who is, well, just _ordinary_, you know, he has no particular welcome.” In the meantime Stéphanie’s allusion to Russian bears had occasioned remark. Ivan told some stories about them which were rather amusing than terrible; for bears, like nobler animals who run away when they are attacked, sometimes make themselves ridiculous. Amidst the laughter which followed, Madame de Salgues’s valet made a whispered communication--“Madame, there is an old soldier without, who wishes to speak with the young gentleman.” “With what young gentleman?” “The young gentleman of the house, he says, madame.”