While speaking, they had walked across the garden, and reached the steps leading to the villa.
“Nothing is easier than to explain this sudden journey,” remarked Mademoiselle Herzog. “On learning that Monsieur and Madame Cayrol were at Nice with the Princess, Madame Desvarennes must have felt how very lonely she was in Paris. She had a longing to be near them, and started.”
Herzog listened attentively, and seemed to be seeking the connection which should exist between the arrival of the Cayrols and the departure of Madame Desvarennes.
“The funniest thing to me is Marechal taking a holiday,” observed Savinien. “They are still at dinner,” he added, entering the drawing-room, through the great doors of which sounds of voices and rattling of plates were heard.
“Well, let us wait for them; we are in agreeable company,” said Herzog, turning toward Marechal, who only answered by a cold bow.
“What are you going to do here, Marechal?” inquired Savinien. “You will be awfully bored.”
“Why? Once in a way I am going to enjoy myself and be a swell. You will teach me, Monsieur Savinien. It cannot be very difficult. It is only necessary to wear a dove-colored coat like you, a gardenia in my buttonhole like Monsieur Le Bride, frizzled hair like Monsieur du Tremblay, and to assail the bank at Monaco.”
“Like all these gentlemen,” said Suzanne, gayly, “you are a gambler then?”
“But then you ought to have great good luck,” said the young girl.
“Will you go partners?” he asked of Marechal. “We will divide the winnings.”
“You are too kind,” replied Marechal, dryly, turning away.
He could not get used to Herzog’s familiarity, and there was something in the man which displeased him greatly. There was, he thought, a police-court atmosphere about him.
Suzanne, on the contrary, interested him. The simple, lively, and frank young girl attracted him, and he liked to talk with her. On several occasions, at Madame Desvarennes’s, he had been her partner. There was through this a certain intimacy between them which he could not extend to the father.
Herzog had that faculty, fortunately for him, of never appearing offended at what was said to him. He took Savinien’s arm in a familiar manner and asked: “Have you noticed that the Prince has looked very preoccupied for the last few days?”