He nodded, and was about to speak, when Lord Robert, who had just entered, exclaimed—
"I also am afraid that I shall be recalled. Had letters this morning. You are right, Miss Shaw. A public man's life is slavery—positive slavery!"
"I never said so. But I have been told that slaves like the institution, and are never so happy after they are free."
"You are really departing, monsieur?" said the law-student from the end of the table. "And you have not yet heard the Senator Travieux speak?"
"It is a pity, is it not? Can't be helped, unless—something unforeseen happens."
"'Encore une étoile qui file,
Qui file, file, et disparait!'"
murmured Madame de Belcour, with her keepsake smile at him. But he did not see it; he never saw more than one thing at a time. A vain man in his own way—dogged, determined, but not accessible to open flatteries from women of this stamp.
There was not the same chorus of "Dommage!" on his account. The ugly Englishman had only been here one week, as against the fair fresh one's four, and though he had talked more than any one at table, and had kept alive the spirit of antagonism to "perfide Albion" briskly but not unpleasantly during that time, it cannot be said that he had fascinated any one.
"Monsieur Georges holds out hopes of returning to us: and you, monsieur?" asked Madame Martineau. "May we hope to see you again?"
