blood. At last he was going to plunge into all that he had dreamed of!

"I don't know the address," La Faloise resumed.

"She lives on a third floor in the Boulevard Haussmann, between the Rue
de l'Arcade and the Rue Pesquier," said Georges all in a breath.

And when the other looked at him in much astonishment, he added, turning
very red and fit to sink into the ground with embarrassment and conceit:

"I'm of the party. She invited me this morning."

But there was a great stir in the drawing room, and Vandeuvres and
Fauchery could not continue pressing the count. The Marquis de Chouard
had just come in, and everyone was anxious to greet him. He had moved
painfully forward, his legs failing under him, and he now stood in the
middle of the room with pallid face and eyes blinking, as though he had
just come out of some dark alley and were blinded by the brightness of
the lamps.

"I scarcely hoped to see you tonight, Father," said the countess. "I
should have been anxious till the morning."

He looked at her without answering, as a man might who fails to
understand. His nose, which loomed immense on his shorn face, looked
like a swollen pimple, while his lower lip hung down. Seeing him such a
wreck, Mme Hugon, full of kind compassion, said pitying things to him.

"You work too hard. You ought to rest yourself. At our age we ought to
leave work to the young people."