This result deeply grieved the Superior Woman, who despaired of
Sancerre, and collected the wit of the neighborhood in her own
drawing-room. Nevertheless, and in spite of the efforts of Messieurs
de Chargeboeuf, Gravier, and de Clagny, of the Abbe Duret and the two
chief magistrates, of a young doctor, and a young Assistant Judge--all
blind admirers of Dinah's--there were occasions when, weary of
discussion, they allowed themselves an excursion into the domain of
agreeable frivolity which constitutes the common basis of worldly
conversation. Monsieur Gravier called this "from grave to gay." The
Abbe Duret's rubber made another pleasing variety on the monologues of
the oracle. The three rivals, tired of keeping their minds up to the
level of the "high range of discussion"--as they called their
conversation--but not daring to confess it, would sometimes turn with
ingratiating hints to the old priest.

"Monsieur le Cure is dying for his game," they would say.

The wily priest lent himself very readily to the little trick. He
protested.

"We should lose too much by ceasing to listen to our inspired
hostess!" and so he would incite Dinah's magnanimity to take pity at
last on her dear Abbe.

This bold manoeuvre, a device of the Sous-prefet's, was repeated with
so much skill that Dinah never suspected her slaves of escaping to the
prison yard, so to speak, of the cardtable; and they would leave her
one of the younger functionaries to harry.

One young landowner, and the dandy of Sancerre, fell away from Dinah's