I thanked him again, and promised to profit by his advice. But my heart was too full of the beautiful lady of the Belle Étoile, to allow our interview to close without an effort to learn something about her. I therefore asked for the Count and Countess de St. Alyre, whom I had had the good fortune to extricate from an extremely unpleasant row in the hall of the inn. Alas! he had not seen them since. He did not know where they were staying. They had a fine old house only a few leagues from Paris; but he thought it probable that they would remain, for a few days at least, in the city, as preparations would, no doubt, be necessary, after so long an absence, for their reception at home. "How long have they been away?" "About eight months, I think." "They are poor, I think you said?" "What _you_ would consider poor. But, Monsieur, the Count has an income which affords them the comforts and even the elegancies of life, living as they do, in a very quiet and retired way, in this cheap country." "Then they are very happy?" "One would say they _ought_ to be happy." "And what prevents?" "He is jealous." "But his wife--she gives him no cause." "I am afraid she does." "How, Monsieur?" "I always thought she was a little too--_a great deal_ too--" "Too _what_, Monsieur?" "Too handsome. But although she has remarkable fine eyes, exquisite features, and the most delicate complexion in the world, I believe that she is a woman of probity. You have never seen her?" "There was a lady, muffled up in a cloak, with a very thick veil on, the other night, in the hall of the Belle Étoile, when I broke that fellow's head who was bullying the old Count. But her veil was so thick I could not see a feature through it!" My answer was diplomatic, you observe. "She may have been the Count's daughter. Do they quarrel?" "Who, he and his wife?" "Yes." "A little." "Oh! and what do they quarrel about?" "It is a long story; about the lady's diamonds. They are valuable--they are worth, La Perelleuse says, about a million of francs. The Count wishes them sold and turned into revenue, which he offers to settle as she pleases. The Countess, whose they are, resists, and for a reason which, I rather think, she can't disclose to him." "And pray what is that?" I asked, my curiosity a good deal piqued. "She is thinking, I conjecture, how well she will look in them when she marries her second husband." "Oh?--yes, to be sure. But the Count de St. Alyre is a good man?" "Admirable, and extremely intelligent." "I should wish so much to be presented to the Count: you tell me he's so--" "So agreeably married. But they are living quite out of the world. He takes her now and then to the Opera, or to a public entertainment; but that is all." "And he must remember so much of the old _régime_, and so many of the scenes of the revolution!"