"Very well, grant me the favor of allowing me to impart to him news that will give him joy."
Monsieur Lebrenn stepped into the room of the old man, who was still smoking his pipe "like a Pacha," as he expressed it.
"Good father," said the linendraper to him, "your grandson has so good and so generous a heart that I give him my daughter, with whom he is crazily in love. All I ask of you is to keep the secret for a few days, after which you are entitled to the expectation of soon seeing yourself promoted to the dignity of great-grandfather. George will explain the whole thing to you. Adieu, my good old man. And you George--so long!"
Leaving George alone with his grandfather, Lebrenn proceeded to the residence of the Count of Plouernel, the colonel of dragoons who was waiting for the linendraper, to consider the purchase of a large supply of linen.
Gonthram Neroweg, Count of Plouernel, occupied a cosy little house on Paradis-Poissonniere Street, built by his own grandfather. The somewhat _rococo_ elegance of the establishment suggested it must have been constructed about the middle of the last century, and had done service as a city residence. The quarter of the Poissonnieres, or Fish-markets, as the neighborhood was called in the days of the Regency, but now almost deserted, was perfectly appropriate for those mysterious retreats that are devoted to the cult of Venus Aphrodite.
The Count of Plouernel was breakfasting _tête-a-tête_ with a pretty girl of about twenty years--a brunette, lively and laughterful, who had been surnamed Pradeline because of her readiness, at the suppers of which she always was the soul and often the queen also, in improvising upon all imaginable subjects, ditties that the celebrated improviser, whose name she bore with a feminine termination, would surely not have cared to father, but which had at least the redeeming feature of lacking neither in point nor in mirthfulness.
The Count of Plouernel, having heard speak of Pradeline, invited her to sup the previous night with him and some of his friends. After the supper, which was prolonged until three in the morning, the right of hospitality for the night had been earned by the girl. After the hospitality came breakfast the following morning. The two companions were, accordingly, at table in a little boudoir fitted out in Louis XV style, and contiguous to the bed chamber. A good fire blazed in the marble-tipped hearth. Thick curtains of light blue damask, covered with roses, softened the glare of the daylight. Flowers filled large porcelain vases. The atmosphere was warm and perfumed. The wines were choice, the dishes toothsome. Pradeline and the Count of Plouernel were doing honor to both.