Under shelter of this pretext, her silent humor, her more than dry answers to Lucan's polite questions, passed at first without awakening either her mother's or her husband's attention; but during the remainder of the day, and amid the various incidents of family life, Julia's aggressive tone and disagreeable manners toward Lucan became too strongly marked not to be noticed.

However, as Lucan had the patience and good taste not to seem to notice them, each one kept his own impressions to himself.

The dinner was, that day, more quiet than usual.

The conversation fell, toward the end of the meal, upon extremely delicate ground, and it was Julia who brought it there, though, however, without the least thought of evil.

She was exhausting her mocking _verve_ upon a little boy of eight or ten--the son of the Marchioness de Boisfresnay--who had annoyed her extremely the night before, by parading through the ball his own pretentious little person, and by throwing himself pleasantly like a top between the legs of the gentlemen and through the dresses of the ladies.