"Eh! monsieur, my dear friend!" cried she, springing towards Stuart with the bird-like step of a Parisian lady. "How happy, oh! how very happy I am to see you here! I would give you a pretty kiss, if I dared. But pray, monsieur, be seated; and here, De Mesmai, help me off with my things."
"How, madame, do you recognise me after so long a lapse of time, and after such, a very short interview? One at night,—by a picquet fire, too?"
"De Mesmai told me you were here," said she, as that adroit cavalier removed her bonnet and shawl, and even adjusted her hair, which was braided above her forehead and fastened behind with a pearl-studded comb _à la Grec_. The soldier laid aside the bonnet, arranged the veil, and folded the collar and shawl with so much the air of a _femme de chambre_, that Stuart could with difficulty repress a smile; but to the lady and her husband it appeared nothing unusual.
"The baroness is a fashionable beauty, certainly," thought the wondering Scot; "but my wife will not be a French woman, thank Heaven!"
"That will do, Maurice," said the lady, freely and easily; "that will do, I thank you. _Mon Dieu!_ I shall never wear that horrid shawl any more; mantelets of satin, laced and furred, are becoming all the rage. Maurice, I know you have quite the eye of a _modiste_; tell me, don’t you think that a mantelet will become me?"
"Madame would appear superb in any thing," replied the other without hesitation, but bowing low while he spoke.
"Oh, Maurice, you are getting quite commonplace. But I suppose it will become me as well as the venerable Berthollet of the Rue de Rivoli."
"Doubtless, madame," replied the Guardsman composedly; while, without noticing her roguish look, he handed her a glass of wine.
"And here, this dear naughty husband of mine asks me not a single question about my morning airing," said Madame, as she sprang up and arranged the cushions at the old man’s back. "Maurice, help me to punch these pillows. Monsieur the baron has been poring over some musty old book till he has been quite overcome with _ennui_, I suppose. _Mon Dieu!_ what a horrid thing it is to become an antiquary!" she continued, as she turned up her fine eyes, and shrugged her fair shoulders. "Do you know, Monsieur Stuart, that ever since the baron became a member of the _Comité Historique des Arts et Monumens_, he has been like a man bewitched!"