"No, it will soon be over. So, then, your love lives in St. Denis Street. You should also let me know--is the place at the head or the foot of the street? There is quite some difference between the head and the foot of a street, you must admit. The proof is, that the prices of the shops are dear at one end and cheap at the other. According as the rent runs high or low, a lover's generosity must keep step and be proportionately great or less so. You can not get over this positive fact." "It is a very positive fact. Well, I shall confide to you that my love lives not far from the St. Denis Gate." "I need put no further questions to render my opinion," said Pradeline with a voice that she was at great pains to modulate into comical tones. Nevertheless, a closer observer than the Count of Plouernel would have noticed a vague shadow of uneasiness flit over the otherwise gay girl. "Well, what is your advice?" "First of all--you should--" but, suddenly breaking off, the young girl said: "Someone raps at the door, darling." "You think so?" "I am quite certain. Listen! Don't you hear?" In fact the rapping was renewed. "Walk in!" cried the Count. A valet presented himself, looking disconcerted, and said to the Count anxiously: "Monsieur Count, his Eminence--" "My uncle!" exclaimed the Count of Plouernel, looking no less disconcerted than his valet, and hastily rising to his feet. "Yes, Monsieur Count. Monsignor the Cardinal arrived last night in the city from his trip abroad, and--" "A Cardinal!" cried Pradeline, interrupting the valet with boisterous peals of laughter, already oblivious of the matters that seemed to preoccupy her mind a minute before. "A Cardinal! That's a rare sight! That's a thing one does not find every day at Mabille's or at Valentino's! A Cardinal! I've never seen one. I must give myself a treat." Whereupon she forthwith improvised to the tune of her favorite song: "The young Queen Bacchanal She saw a Cardinal, And said: Let's have some fun, And make him dance and run-- La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla, La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla!" So saying, Pradeline raised the hem of her dress and started to pirouet around the room with great grace and utterly unconstrained, all the while singing her latest improvisation, while the valet, standing motionless at the half-opened door was with difficulty keeping a serious face, and the Count of Plouernel, nettled at the freedom of the brazen minx, called to her: "Come, my dear; that's foolish; keep still." Cardinal Plouernel, just announced, not caring to be kept waiting in his nephew's ante-chamber, and little imagining him to be in such profane company, had followed upon the heels of the valet, and entered the room just as Pradeline, throwing out her well shaped limb, undulated her upper body as she sang: "Oh, let us have some fun, And make him dance and run! La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla--"