refused all promotion, and became a quite pious adorer of this angel
of grace and beauty. He was a tall, lean man, with a minatory
countenance set off by terrible eyes in deep black circles, under
enormous eyebrows; and his eloquence, very unlike his love-making,
could be incisive.

Monsieur Gravier was a little, round man, who in the days of the
Empire had been a charming ballad-singer; it was this accomplishment
that had won him the high position of Paymaster-General of the forces.
Having mixed himself up in certain important matters in Spain with
generals at that time in opposition, he had made the most of these
connections to the Minister, who, in consideration of the place he had
lost, promised him the Receivership at Sancerre, and then allowed him
to pay for the appointment. The frivolous spirit and light tone of the
Empire had become ponderous in Monsieur Gravier; he did not, or would
not, understand the wide difference between manners under the
Restoration and under the Empire. Still, he conceived of himself as
far superior to Monsieur de Clagny; his style was in better taste; he
followed the fashion, was to be seen in a buff waistcoat, gray
trousers, and neat, tightly-fitting coats; he wore a fashionable silk
tie slipped through a diamond ring, while the lawyer never dressed in
anything but black--coat, trousers, and waistcoat alike, and those
often shabby.

These four men were the first to go into ecstasies over Dinah's
cultivation, good taste, and refinement, and pronounced her a woman of
most superior mind. Then the women said to each other, "Madame de la
Baudraye must laugh at us behind our back."

This view, which was more or less correct, kept them from visiting at