Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 3.djvu/153

 THE ETRUSCAN VASE UGUSTE SAINT-CLAIR was not at all a favourite in Society, the chief reason being that he only cared to please those who took his own fancy. He avoided the former and sought after the latter. In other respects he was absent-minded and indolent. One evening, on coming out of the Italian Opera, the Marquise A——— asked him his opinion on the singing of Mlle. Sontag. "Yes, Madam," Saint-Clair replied, smiling pleasantly, and thinking of something totally different. This ridiculous reply could not be set down to shyness, for he talked with great lords and noted men and women and even with Society women with as much ease as though he were their equal. The Marquise put down Saint-Clair as a stupid, impertinent boor.

One Monday he had an invitation to dine with Madam B———. She paid him a good deal of attention, and on leaving her house, he remarked that he had never met a more agreeable woman. Madam B——— spent a month