And everybody at the table laughed heartily at the rustic jests of the
old Berrichon peasant, whose colossal fortune filled the place of
manliness, of education, of kindness of heart, but not of wit; for he had
plenty of that, the rascal--more than all his bourgeois fellow-guests
together. Among the very rare persons who inspired a sympathetic feeling
in his breast, little Chebe, whom he had known as an urchin, appealed
particularly to him; and she, for her part, having become rich too
recently not to venerate wealth, talked to her right-hand neighbor with a
very perceptible air of respect and coquetry.

With her left-hand-neighbor, on the contrary, Georges Fromont, her
husband's partner, she exhibited the utmost reserve. Their conversation
was restricted to the ordinary courtesies of the table; indeed there was
a sort of affectation of indifference between them.

Suddenly there was that little commotion among the guests which indicates
that they are about to rise: the rustling of silk, the moving of chairs,
the last words of conversations, the completion of a laugh, and in that
half-silence Madame Chebe, who had become communicative, observed in a
very loud tone to a provincial cousin, who was gazing in an ecstasy of
admiration at the newly made bride's reserved and tranquil demeanor, as
she stood with her arm in Monsieur Gardinois's:

"You see that child, cousin--well, no one has ever been able to find out
what her thoughts were."

Thereupon the whole party rose and repaired to the grand salon.

While the guests invited for the ball were arriving and mingling with the
dinner-guests, while the orchestra was tuning up, while the cavaliers,