about anything that no one else will take."

"Bah!" said Eugene. "I am only two-and-twenty, and I must make up my
mind to the drawbacks of my time of life. Besides, I am confessing my
sins, and it would be impossible to kneel in a more charming
confessional; you commit your sins in one drawing-room, and receive
absolution for them in another."

The Duchess' expression grew colder, she did not like the flippant
tone of these remarks, and showed that she considered them to be in
bad taste by turning to the Vicomtesse with--"This gentleman has only
just come----"

Mme. de Beauseant began to laugh outright at her cousin and at the
Duchess both.

"He has only just come to Paris, dear, and is in search of some one
who will give him lessons in good taste."

"Mme. la Duchesse," said Eugene, "is it not natural to wish to be
initiated into the mysteries which charm us?" ("Come, now," he said to
himself, "my language is superfinely elegant, I'm sure.")

"But Mme. de Restaud is herself, I believe, M. de Trailles' pupil,"
said the Duchess.

"Of that I had no idea, madame," answered the law student, "so I
rashly came between them. In fact, I got on very well with the lady's
husband, and his wife tolerated me for a time until I took it into my
head to tell them that I knew some one of whom I had just caught a