"There are three--but they're dressed as men."
And the old gentleman turned to the baroness and said: "I don't understand, do you, madame?"
The baroness looked at her neighbor with an ironical expression, and replied:
"I don't think so--that is to say--Ah! I see, it's a metaphor!--That's a very unkind thing to say."
The play suggested was adopted; then they desired a third, to begin the performance.
"Yes," said Chambourdin, "when you take so much trouble to put yourselves in training, you must give full measure--a performance _complet_, like an omnibus. I am going to propose a jolly farce, a little one-act affair with three characters: _OEil et Nez_."
"Oh, yes!" cried Dufournelle; "do you remember, Eléonore? when we saw it, you laughed so hard that--really you laughed too heartily."
"I had already suggested that," said little Astianax; "I know the part of Tityrus."
"And I will be the Eye, if you choose," laughed Madame Dufournelle.
"But what on earth can this play be in which there's an Eye and a Nose?" queried Monsieur Camuzard, appealing once more to his neighbor. "I can't imagine, can you, madame?"
"I, monsieur? Why I am accustomed to seeing them in all the plays that are acted, and it doesn't seem at all strange to me."
Far from satisfied with this reply, Monsieur Camuzard dropped his chin on his cravat and his nose beneath his spectacles.
The choice of plays being made, they sent out for books, in order to distribute the rôles during the evening. Then they left the table and returned to the salon, where other guests, invited for the evening, were already assembled.
In the confusion that takes place when a number of people pass from one room to another, it is very easy to approach a person to whom one has something to say. A lover never lets that opportunity escape him, when he has not been seated beside the lady of his thoughts at dinner.
On this occasion it was a lady, who, as if without design, seated herself in a corner of the salon where a gentleman was already standing. The lady was the Baronne de Grangeville, and she said to Monsieur de Merval in an undertone:
"Have I changed so very much, pray, that Monsieur de Merval does not recognize me?"
"Pardon me, madame--I recognized you perfectly the instant that you arrived."