She looked at her fan with a gleam of ill-concealed irony and glanced over it toward Albert de Chantonnay, who, with a consideration which must have been hereditary, was uneasy about the alteration he had made in his whiskers.

It was perhaps unfair, he felt, to harrow young and tender hearts.
It was at this moment that a loud knock commanded a breathless silence, for no more guests were expected.

Indeed the whole neighbourhood was present.
The servant, in his faded gold lace, came in and announced with a dramatic assurance: "Monsieur de Borbone--Monsieur Colville." And that difference which Dormer Colville had predicted was manifested with an astounding promptness; for all who were seated rose to their feet.

It was Colville who had given the names to the servant in the order in which they had been announced, and at the last minute, on the threshold, he had stepped on one side and with his hand on Barebone's shoulder had forced him to take precedence.
The first person Barebone saw on entering the room was Juliette, standing under the spreading arms of a chandelier, half turned to look at him--Juliette, in all the freshness of her girlhood and her first evening dress, flushing pink and white like a wild rose, her eyes, bright with a sudden excitement, seeking his.
Behind her, the Marquis de Gemosac, Albert de Chantonnay, his mother, and all the Royalists of the province, gathered in a semicircle, by accident or some tacit instinct, leaving only the girl standing out in front, beneath the chandelier.

They bowed with that grave self-possession which falls like a cloak over the shoulders of such as are of ancient and historic lineage.
"We reached the chateau of Gemosac only a few minutes after Monsieur le Marquis and Mademoiselle had quitted it to come here," Barebone explained to Madame de Chantonnay; "and trusting to the good-nature--so widely famed--of Madame la Comtesse, we hurriedly removed the dust of travel, and took the liberty of following them hither." "You have not taken me by surprise," replied Madame de Chantonnay.