The heat was increasing, and amid the overcrowded rooms the
quadrille unrolled the cadenced symmetry of its figures.
"Very smart--the countess!" La Faloise continued at the garden door.
"She's ten years younger than her daughter. By the by, Foucarmont, you
must decide on a point. Vandeuvres once bet that she had no thighs."
This affectation of cynicism bored the other gentlemen, and Foucarmont
contented himself by saying:
"Ask your cousin, dear boy. Here he is."
"Jove, it's a happy thought!" cried La Faloise. "I bet ten louis she has
thighs."
Fauchery did indeed come up. As became a constant inmate of the house,
he had gone round by the dining room in order to avoid the crowded
doors. Rose had taken him up again at the beginning of the winter, and
he was now dividing himself between the singer and the countess, but he
was extremely fatigued and did not know how to get rid of one of them.
Sabine flattered his vanity, but Rose amused him more than she. Besides,
the passion Rose felt was a real one: her tenderness for him was marked
by a conjugal fidelity which drove Mignon to despair.
"Listen, we want some information," said La Faloise as he squeezed his
cousin's arm. "You see that lady in white silk?"
Ever since his inheritance had given him a kind of insolent dash of
manner he had affected to chaff Fauchery, for he had an old grudge to
satisfy and wanted to be revenged for much bygone raillery, dating from
the days when he was just fresh from his native province.
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