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Rh lest I should say what I have no right to say, what lies deep down within myself, one of those involuntary sentiments. ..."

"I am so sorry, Mme. Armand," cried the hostess, returning. "My son was a little tired and has gone up to his room."

The musical and literary evening was over. But the resources of the la Vaudraye salon did not end there. Its frequenters prided themselves on knowing how to talk. And the conversation went by rule, of course, as everything went by rule in this society which, by the almost daily repetition of the same acts, had established habits as strong as immutable laws.

The licensed talkers were M. Beaufrelant, who, they said, cultivated the flowers of rhetoric with the same zeal and the same success as the flowers of the soil; Mme. de la Vaudraye, who specialized in literary discussions; M. Lartiste, who, as a printer, was naturally marked out for the loftiest philosophical speculations; M. Simare the elder,