Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world of
Paris asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Bois
de Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the ride
Clementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This caprice
of the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet. Clementine dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in a style that impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salon where the two friends awaited her.
"Comte Paz," she said, "you must go with us to the Opera."
This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: "If you
refuse we shall quarrel."
"Willingly, madame," replied the captain. "But as I have not the
fortune of a count, have the kindness to call me captain."
"Very good, captain; give me your arm," she said,—taking it and
leading the way to the dining-room with the flattering familiarity
which enchants all lovers.
The countess placed the captain beside her; his behavior was that of a
poor sub-lieutenant dining at his general's table. He let Clementine
talk, listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with her
in anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. He
seemed actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little ways
missed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional
respect. In vain Adam kept saying: "Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would
really suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager to
disconcert Clementine." Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep. When
the servants left the room at the end of the dessert the captain
explained that his habits were diametrically opposite to those of
society,—he went to bed at eight o'clock and got up very early in the
morning; and he excused his dulness on the ground of being sleepy.
"My intention in taking you to the Opera was to amuse you, captain; but do as you prefer," said Clementine, rather piqued.
"I will go," said Paz.
"Duprez sings 'Guillaume Tell,'" remarked Adam. "But perhaps you would
rather go to the 'Varietes'?"
The captain smiled and rang the bell. "Tell Constantin," he said to
the footman, "to put the horses to the carriage instead of the coupe. We should be rather squeezed otherwise," he said to the count.
"A Frenchman would have forgotten that," remarked Clementine, smiling.
"Ah! but we are Florentines transplanted to the North," answered
Thaddeus with a refinement of accent and a look in his eyes which made
his conduct at table seem assumed for the occasion. There was too
evident a contrast between his involuntary self-revelation in this
speech and his behavior during dinner. Clementine examined the captain
with a few of those covert glances which show a woman's surprise and
also her capacity for observation.
It resulted from this little incident that silence reigned in the
salon while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying to
Adam, who was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine no
longer tried to draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand, retreated within his military stiffness and came out of it no more, neither on the way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to be asleep.
"You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man," he said during the
dance in the last act of "Guillaume Tell." "Am I not right to keep, as
the saying is, to my own specialty?"
"In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
world, but you are perhaps Polish."
"Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
household—it is all I am good for."
"Tartufe! pooh!" cried Adam, laughing. "My dear, he is full of ardor; he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any salon. Clementine, don't believe his modesty."
"Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will
take the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you."
Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
"What a bear!" she said to the count. "You are a great deal nicer."
Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
"Poor, dear Thaddeus," he said, "he is trying to make himself
disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I."
"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some calculation
in his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman."