"He's grown, I trust." The young man with his clear eyes and the fair curls which suggested a girl dressed up as a boy bowed easily to the countess and reminded her of a bout of battledore and shuttlecock they had had together two years ago at Les Fondettes.
"Philippe is not in Paris ?" asked Count Muffat.
"Dear me, no!" replied the old lady.

"He is always in garrison at Bourges." She had seated herself and began talking with considerable pride of her eldest son, a great big fellow who, after enlisting in a fit of waywardness, had of late very rapidly attained the rank of lieutenant.

All the ladies behaved to her with respectful sympathy, and conversation was resumed in a tone at once more amiable and more refined.

Fauchery, at sight of that respectable Mme Hugon, that motherly face lit up with such a kindly smile beneath its broad tresses of white hair, thought how foolish he had been to suspect the Countess Sabine even for an instant.
Nevertheless, the big chair with the red silk upholsteries in which the countess sat had attracted his attention.

Its style struck him as crude, not to say fantastically suggestive, in that dim old drawing room.
Certainly it was not the count who had inveigled thither that nest of voluptuous idleness.