"Yes, my dear little sister, I am as annoyed to see you go out, as I shall be impatient to see you return, and these are faults of which I shall never be corrected." "And you are quite right, dear; for if you did I should be very, very sorry." The sound of a bell, announcing a visit, was now heard. "Here is one of your guests, no doubt," said Madame d'Harville. "I leave you; but, by the way, what are you going to do in the evening? If you have no better engagement, I require you to accompany me to the Italian Opera; perhaps now you will like the music better." "I am at your orders with the utmost pleasure." "Are you going out by and by? Shall I see you before dinner?" "I shall not go out; you will find me here." "Well, then, on my return, I shall come and inquire if your bachelors' breakfast has been amusing." "Adieu, Clemence!" "Adieu, dear! We shall soon meet again. I leave you a clear house, and wish you may be as merry as possible. Be very gay and lively, mind." Having cordially shaken her husband's hand, Clemence went out of one door as M. de Lucenay entered by another. "She wished me to be as merry as possible, and bade me be gay! In the word adieu, in that last cry of my soul in its agony, in that word of complete and eternal separation, she has understood that we should meet again soon,--this evening,--and leaves me tranquilly, and with a smile! It does honour to my dissimulation. By heaven, I did not think that I was so good an actor! But here is Lucenay." CHAPTER VIII. THE BACHELORS' BREAKFAST. M. de Lucenay came into the room. The duke's wound had been so slight, that he did not even carry his arm in a sling. His countenance was, as usual, mirthful, yet proud; his motion perpetual; and his restlessness, as usual, unconquerable. In spite of his awkwardness, his ill-timed pleasantries, and in spite of his immense nose, which gave his face a grotesque and odd character, M. de Lucenay was not, as we have already said, a vulgar person, thanks to a kind of natural dignity and bold impertinence, which never forsook him. "How indifferent you must think me to what concerns you, my dear Henry!" said M. d'Harville, extending his hand to M. de Lucenay; "but it was only this morning that I heard of your unfortunate adventure." "Unfortunate! Pooh--pooh, marquis! I had my money's worth, as they say. I really never laughed so in my life. The worthy M. Robert was so religiously determined to maintain that he never had a phlegmy cough, in all his life,--but you do not know! This was the cause of the duel. The other evening at the ---- embassy, I asked him, before your wife and the Countess Macgregor, how his phlegmy cough was? _Inde irae!_ for, between ourselves, he had nothing of the kind; but it was all the same, and, you may suppose, to have such a thing alluded to before pretty women was very provoking." "How foolish! Yet it is so like you! But who is this M. Robert?"