As he spoke, Roncherolle halted in front of Madame de Grangeville and scrutinized her with a peculiar expression; on her side, that lady examined closely and with an air of amazement the man before her, and tried to think where she had seen him before.
"Well! can it be that you don't recognize me?" continued Roncherolle, walking still nearer, the better to see the baroness; and he added, like a person who fears that he has made a mistake:
"Surely it is Madame de Grangeville to whom I have the honor of speaking?"
"De Roncherolle, at your service, if you will permit."
"Roncherolle; is it possible? is it really you?"
"Why, yes, it is really I, my dear Lucienne."
"Dear fellow! What a pleasure to see you again! Come and sit here, beside me."
Roncherolle limped to the _causeuse_, saying to himself:
"How he has changed! how ugly he has grown! I should never have known him!"
"Tell me, my dear friend," said Roncherolle, making himself comfortable on the _causeuse_, "didn't you expect a visit from me? Didn't you receive my bouquets?"
"I beg pardon; indeed I expected you, and most impatiently, I assure you; but the fact is----"
"That I am devilishly changed, eh? What can you expect? time spares no one; and then the gout--that makes one suffer, it wears one out!"
"That accounts for it then; I noticed in your gait something--that you used not to have."
"I should say so; I limp like an old horse!"
"You are no longer as slender as you used to be."
Roncherolle, beginning to be weary of these remarks, replied with his ironical air, pretending to laugh:
"Ha! ha! what do you expect, my dear friend? We aren't either of us what we were twenty years ago! You yourself haven't that wasp-like waist that called forth universal admiration, and those irreproachable teeth that drove all women to despair."
Madame de Grangeville flushed and bit her lips in anger. She tried, however, to maintain an affable manner as she said:
"Ah! so you find me changed? That is strange; there are people who declare that I am just the same."
"That is because those people haven't passed twelve years without seeing you. But we two old friends, old acquaintances, have not met to flatter each other. Bless me! we know each other too intimately and of too long date not to be frank between ourselves. Poor Lucienne! ha! ha!"
