A simple but elegant style of dress, an air of perfect ease,
polite manners, a pleasant voice with a ring in it which found a
response in the hearer's heart-strings, won the good-will of the
family for Monsieur Longueville. He did not seem unaccustomed to the
luxury of the Receiver-General's ostentatious mansion. Though his
conversation was that of a man of the world, it was easy to discern
that he had had a brilliant education, and that his knowledge was as
thorough as it was extensive. He knew so well the right thing to say
in a discussion on naval architecture, trivial, it is true, started by
the old admiral, that one of the ladies remarked that he must have
passed through the Ecole Polytechnique.
"And I think, madame," he replied, "that I may regard it as an honor
to have got in."
In spite of urgent pressing, he refused politely but firmly to be kept
to dinner, and put an end to the persistency of the ladies by saying
that he was the Hippocrates of his young sister, whose delicate health
required great care.
"Monsieur is perhaps a medical man?" asked one of Emilie's
sisters-in-law with ironical meaning.
"Monsieur has left the Ecole Polytechnique," Mademoiselle de Fontaine
kindly put in; her face had flushed with richer color, as she learned
that the young lady of the ball was Monsieur Longueville's sister.
"But, my dear, he may be a doctor and yet have been to the Ecole
Polytechnique--is it not so, monsieur?"
"There is nothing to prevent it, madame," replied the young man.
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