me to examine it," I said. She passed it to her left hand for me to take. The butler made a step forward.
"Meanwhile, Madame," said the Baron, smiling, "I have no salt."
The instinct of hospitality prevailed;—she was about to return it. Might I do an awkward thing? Unhesitatingly. Reversing my glass, I gave my arm a wider sweep than necessary, and, as it met her hand with violence, the salière fell. Before it touched the floor I caught it There was still a pinch of salt left,—nothing more.
"A thousand pardons!" I said, and restored it to the Baron.
His Excellency beheld it with dismay; it was rare to see him bend over and scrutinize it with starting eyes.
"Do you find there what Count Arnaklos begs in the song," asked Delphine,—"the secret of the sea, Monsieur?"
He handed it to the butler, observing, "I find here no"–
"Salt, Monsieur?" replied the man, who did not doubt but all had gone right, and replenished it.
Had one told me in the morning that no intricate manoeuvres, but a simple blunder, would effect this, I might have met him in the Bois de Boulogne.
"We will not quarrel," said my neighbor, lightly, with reference to the popular superstition.
"Rather propitiate the offended deities by a crumb tossed over the shoulder," added I.
"Over the left?" asked the Baron, to intimate his knowledge of another idiom, together with a reproof for my gaucherie.
"À gauche,—quelquefois c'est justement à droit," I replied.
"Salt in any pottage," said Madame, a little uneasily, "is like surprise in an individual; it brings out the flavor of every ingredient, so my cook tells me."
"It is a preventive of palsy," I remarked, as the slight trembling of my adversary's finger caught my eye.
"And I have noticed that a taste for it is peculiar to those who trace their blood to Galitzin," continued Madame.
"Let us, therefore, elect a deputation to those mines near Cracow," said Delphine.
"To our cousins, the slaves there?" laughed her mother.
"I must vote to lay your bill on the table, Mademoiselle," I rejoined.
"But with a boule blanche, Monsieur?"
"As the salt has been laid on the floor," said the Baron.
Meanwhile, as this light skirmishing proceeded, my sleeve and Mme. de St. Cyr's dress were slightly powdered, but I had not seen the diamond. The Baron, bolder than I, looked under the table, but made no discovery. I was on the point of dropping my napkin to accomplish a similar movement, when my accommodating neighbor dropped hers. To restore it, I stooped. There it lay, large and glowing, the Sea of Splendor, the Moon of Milk, the Torment of my Life, on the carpet, within half an inch of a lady's slipper. Mademoiselle de St. Cyr's foot had prevented the Baron from seeing it; now it moved and unconsciously covered it. All was as I wished. I hastily restored the napkin, and looked steadily at Delphine,—so steadily, that she perceived some meaning, as she had already suspected a game. By my sign she understood me, pressed her foot upon the stone and drew it nearer. In France we do not remain at table until unfit for a lady's society,—we rise with them. Delphine needed to drop neither napkin nor handkerchief; she composedly stooped and picked up the stone, so quickly that no one saw what it was.
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