Hosts and guests were ceremoniously attired; Bigourdin and the elder Viriot suffocated in tightly buttoned frock-coats of venerable and painful fit; Lucien, more dashing, wore a morning coat (last cry of Bond Street) acquired recently from the “High Life” emporium in Paris; all three men retained yellow dogskin gloves until they sat down to table. Madame Viriot, stout and placid, appeared in her black silk dress and an old lace collar and her very best hat with her very best black ostrich feather secured by the old rose-diamond buckle, famous throughout the valley of the Dordogne, which had belonged to her great-great-grandmother; and, lastly, Félise wore a high-necked simple frock of dazzling whiteness which might have shewn up her delicate dark colouring had not her cheeks been inordinately pale. Bigourdin had Madame Viriot on his right, Monsieur Viriot on his left, and Félise sat between Monsieur Viriot and Lucien. Every one was most ceremoniously polite. It was “_mon cher_ Viriot,” and “_mon cher_ Bigourdin,” and the formal “_vous_” instead of the “_mon vieux_” and the “_tu_” of the café and of ordinary life; also, “_chère madame_,” and “Monsieur Lucien” and “_ma nièce_.” And although from childhood Félise and Lucien had called each other by their Christian names, it was now “monsieur” and “mademoiselle” between them. You see, marriage is in France a deuce of a ceremony which begins months before anybody dreams of setting the wedding bells a-ringing. This dinner of ceremony was the first scene of the first act of the elaborate drama which would end on the curtain being run down to the aforesaid wedding-bells. Really, when one goes into the question, and considers all the barbed wire entanglements that French law and custom interpose between two young people who desire to become man and wife, one not only wonders how any human pair can go through the ordeal and ever marry at all, but is profoundly convinced that France is the most moral country on the face of the globe. As a matter of fact, it is. It was a long meal of many courses. Martin, aided by the _plongeur_, acquitted himself heroically. Manners professional and individual, and also the strain of service prevented him from attending to the conversation. But what he could not avoid overhearing did not impress him with its brilliance. It was a self-conscious little company. It threw about statistics as to the state of the truffle crop; it listened to Lucien’s modest anecdotes of his military career; it decided that Parisians were greatly to be pitied in that fate compelled them to live in Paris instead of Brantôme. Even the flush of good cheer failed to inspire it with heartiness. For this perhaps the scared unresponsiveness of one of the chief personages was responsible. “Are you fond of dogs, mademoiselle?” asked Lucien, valiant in small talk. “_Oui, monsieur_,” replied Félise. “Have you any now, mademoiselle?” “_Non, monsieur_,” replied Félise.