'A young friend of mine, just come from Italy, Madame, said De Noe, suddenly perceiving Madame Roland's eyes fixed on Fitzgerald.
'Assuredly, Madame, or I had not dared to present him,' said De Noe, bowing.
'You must not say so, sir. Do you know,' said she, addressing Gerald, 'that it was only last week he brought a bishop here, Monseigneur de Blois.'
'Ah! but be just, Madame; he had been degraded for immorality,' broke in De Noe, laughing.
'You should have shared his penalty, Monsieur De Noe,' said she, half coldly, and moved on.
'Come, Gerald, let me present you to some of my illustrious friends. Whom will you know? That choleric old lady there, a dismissed court lady, and the sworn enemy of the queen; or her daughter, the pretty widow, playing trictrac with Fabre d'Êglantine? Or shall I introduce you to that dark-eyed beauty, whose foot you are not the first man that ever admired? She is, or was, La Comtesse de Ratignolles, but calls herself Julie Servan on her books.
'Why don't you answer me? What are you thinking of? Ah, parbleu! I see well enough. It is the Gabrielle; and the tall, pale man she leans upon is Talma. Is not that enough of homage, _mon cher_? See how they rise to let her pass. We have been courtiers in our day, Gerald, but did you ever see a more queenly presence than that?'
It was truly, as De Noe described, like the passage of royalty. Marietta swept by, bowing slightly to either side, and by an easy gesture of her hand seeming half to decline, half accept, the honours that were paid her. Refusing with a sort of haughty indifference the seat prepared for her at the end of the room, she moved on toward a small boudoir, and was lost to Gerald's view. Indeed, his attention was rapidly directed elsewhere, as a small, dark-eyed man in the centre of the room proceeded to entertain the company with an account of Mirabeau's last moments. It was the Doctor Cabanis, who had tended his sickbed with such devotional affection, and whose real attachment had soothed the last sufferings of his patient. If there was something in Gerald's estimation more than questionable in this exposure of all that might be deemed most sacred and private, the narrative was full of little details that interested him.