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By Root 1892 0

well, if it’s bad for you!” Bloch was downcast. “But you can’t say it’s not hot in here.” And breaking into a laugh, he swept a glance round the room in an appeal for support against Mme de Villeparisis. He received none, from these well-bred people. His blazing eyes, having failed to seduce any of the other guests, resignedly reverted to their former gravity of expression. He acknowledged his defeat with: “What’s the temperature? Twenty-two at least, I should say. Twenty-five? I’m not surprised. I’m simply dripping. And I have not, like the sage Antenor, son of the river Alpheus, the power to plunge myself in the paternal wave to staunch my sweat before laying my body in a bath of polished marble and anointing my limbs with fragrant oils.” And with that need which people feel to outline for the benefit of others medical theories the application of which would be beneficial to their own health: “Well, if you believe it’s good for you! I must say, I think the opposite. It’s exactly what gives you your cold.”

Bloch had expressed delight at the idea of meeting M. de Norpois. He would like, he said, to get him to talk about the Dreyfus case.

“There’s a mentality at work there which I don’t altogether understand, and it would be rather intriguing to have an interview with this eminent diplomat,” he said in a sarcastic tone, so as not to appear to be rating himself below the Ambassador.

Mme de Villeparisis was sorry that he had said this so loud, but minded less when she saw that the archivist, whose strong Nationalist views kept her, so to speak, on a leash, was too far off to have overheard. She was more shocked to hear Bloch, led on by that demon of ill-breeding which made him permanently blind to the consequences of what he said, inquiring with a laugh at the paternal pleasantry:

“Haven’t I read a learned treatise by him in which he sets forth a string of irrefutable arguments to prove that the Russo-Japanese war was bound to end in a Russian victory and a Japanese defeat? And isn’t he a bit senile? I’m sure he’s the one I’ve seen taking aim at his chair before sliding across the room to it, as if on casters.”

“Good gracious, never!” the Marquise put in. “Just wait a minute. I don’t know what he can be doing.”

She rang the bell and, when the servant appeared, as she made no secret of, and indeed liked to advertise, the fact that her old friend spent the greater part of his time in her house: “Go and tell M. de Norpois to come,” she ordered. “He’s sorting some papers in my library; he said he would be twenty minutes, and I’ve been waiting now for an hour and three-quarters. He’ll talk to you about the Dreyfus case, or anything else you like,” she said grumpily to Bloch. “He doesn’t much approve of what’s happening.”

For M. de Norpois was not on good terms with the ministry of the day, and Mme de Villeparisis, although he had never taken the liberty of bringing any governmental personalities to her house (she still preserved all the unapproachable dignity of a great lady of the aristocracy and remained outside and above the political relations which he was obliged to cultivate), was kept well informed by him of everything that went on. Equally, these politicians of the present regime would never have dared to ask M. de Norpois to introduce them to Mme de Villeparisis. But several of them had gone down to see him at her house in the country when they needed his advice or help at critical junctures. They knew the address. They went to the house. They did not see its mistress. But at dinner that evening she would say: “I hear they’ve been down here bothering you. Are things going better?”

“You’re not in a hurry?” she now asked Bloch.

“No, not at all. I was thinking of going because I’m not very well; in fact there’s a possibility of my taking a cure at Vichy for my gall bladder,” he explained, articulating these words with a fiendish irony.

“Why, that’s just where my nephew Châtellerault’s got to go. You must fix it up together. Is he still here? He’s a nice boy, you know,” said Mme de Villeparisis, sincerely perhaps,