Page:Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and other profitable tales, 1915.djvu/122

 108 a vast hall hung with weapons and glittering with steel.

"Your residence is superb, Madame, and the country is beautiful," said the General. "I have often been to shoot about here, chiefly with the Brécés, where I had the pleasure of meeting your son, if I am not mistaken."

"No, you are not mistaken," said Ernest de Bonmont, who had driven the General from Saint-Luchaire. "And to say one is bored at the Brécés is to put it mildly!"

It was a small luncheon party. Besides the General, the Captain, the Baronne and her son, there were only Madame Worms-Clavelin and Joseph Lacrisse.

"You must take things as you find them!" said Madame de Bonmont placing the General on her right at a table decorated with flowers over which towered an equestrian statue of Napoleon in Sèvres porcelain.

At a glance the General took in the long gallery hung with the finest Van Orley tapestries.

"You have plenty of room here!"

"The General might have brought his brigade," said the Captain.

"I should have been delighted to receive it," replied the Baronne smiling.