" "Am I not right to keep, as
the saying is, to my own specialty?"
"In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
world, but you are perhaps Polish."
"Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
household--it is all I am good for."
"Tartufe! pooh!" cried Adam, laughing. "My dear, he is full of ardor;
he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any
salon. Clementine, don't believe his modesty."
"Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will
take the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you."
Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
"What a bear!" she said to the count. "You are a great deal nicer."
Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
"Poor, dear Thaddeus," he said, "he is trying to make himself
disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I."
"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some CALCULATION in
his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman."
Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out "Gate!"
and the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to
her husband, "Where does the captain perch?"
"Why, there!" replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the porte-
cochere which had one window looking on the street.
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