Mademoiselle had her seat on a couch by one of the ladies; and naturally my eyes went first to her. She was dressed in white, and it struck me with the force of a blow how small, how childish she was! Very fair, of the purest complexion, and perfectly formed, she seemed to derive an extravagant, an absurd, air of dignity from the formality of her dress, from the height of the powdered hair that strained upwards from her forehead, from the stiffness of her brocaded petticoat. But she was very small. I had time to note this, to feel a little disappointment, and to fancy that, cast in a larger mould, she would have been supremely handsome; and then the lady beside her, seeing me, spoke to her, and the child--she was really little more--looked up, her face grown crimson. Our eyes met--thank God! she had Louis' eyes--and she looked down again, blushing painfully. I advanced to pay my respects to Madame, and kissed the hand, which, without at once breaking off her conversation, she extended to me. "But such powers!" the Abbé, who had something of the reputation of a _philosophe_, was saying to her. "Without limit! Without check! Misused, Madame----" "But the King is too good!" Madame la Marquise answered, smiling. "When well advised, I agree. But then the deficit?" The Marquise shrugged her shoulders. "His Majesty must have money," she said. "Yes--but whence?" the Abbé asked, with answering shrug. "The King was too good at the beginning," Madame replied, with a touch of severity. "He should have made them register the edicts. However, the Parliament has always given way, and will do so again." "The Parliament--yes," the Abbé retorted, smiling indulgently. "But it is no longer a question of the Parliament; and the States General----" "States General pass," Madame responded grandly. "The King remains!" "Yet if trouble comes?" "It will not," Madame answered with the same grand air. "His Majesty will prevent it." And then with a word or two more she dismissed the Abbé and turned to me. She tapped me on the shoulder with her fan. "Ah! truant," she said, with a glance in which kindness and a little austerity were mingled. "I do not know what I am to say to you! Indeed, from the account Victor gave me yesterday, I hardly knew whether to expect you this evening or not. Are you sure that it is you who are here?" "I will answer for my heart, Madame," I answered, laying my hand upon it. Her eyes twinkled kindly. "Then," she said, "bring it where it is due, Monsieur." And she turned with a fine air of ceremony, and led me to her daughter. "Denise," she said, "this is M. le Vicomte de Saux, the son of my old, my good friend. M. le Vicomte--my daughter. Perhaps you will amuse her while I go back to the Abbé."