“Oh! as to pictures, nobody can hope to rival an obscure collector, one Elie Magus, a Jew, an old monomaniac, the prince of picture-lovers,” the Count replied modestly.  “And when I say nobody, I do not speak of Paris only, but of all Europe.  When the old Croesus dies, France ought to spare seven or eight millions of francs to buy the gallery.  For curiosities, my collection is good enough to be talked about—­”

“But how, busy as you are, and with a fortune so honestly earned in the first instance in business—­”

“In the drug business,” broke in Popinot; “you ask how I can continue to interest myself in things that are a drug in the market—­”

“No,” returned the foreign visitor, “no, but how do you find time to collect?  The curiosities do not come to find you.”

“My father-in-law owned the nucleus of the collection,” said the young Vicomtess; “he loved the arts and beautiful work, but most of his treasures came to him through me.”

“Through you, madame?—­So young! and yet have you such vices as this?” asked a Russian prince.

Russians are by nature imitative; imitative indeed to such an extent that the diseases of civilization break out among them in epidemics.  The bric-a-brac mania had appeared in an acute form in St. Petersburg, and the Russians caused such a rise of prices in the “art line,” as Remonencq would say, that collection became impossible.  The prince who spoke had come to Paris solely to buy bric-a-brac.

“The treasures came to me, prince, on the death of a cousin.  He was very fond of me,” added the Vicomtesse Popinot, “and he had spent some forty odd years since 1805 in picking up these masterpieces everywhere, but more especially in Italy—­”

“And what was his name?” inquired the English lord.

“Pons,” said President Camusot.

“A charming man he was,” piped the Presidente in her thin, flute tones, “very clever, very eccentric, and yet very good-hearted.  This fan that you admire once belonged to Mme. de Pompadour; he gave it to me one morning with a pretty speech which you must permit me not to repeat,” and she glanced at her daughter.

“Mme. la Vicomtesse, tell us the pretty speech,” begged the Russian prince.

“The speech was as pretty as the fan,” returned the Vicomtesse, who brought out the stereotyped remark on all occasions.  “He told my mother that it was quite time that it should pass from the hands of vice into those of virtue.”

The English lord looked at Mme. Camusot de Marville with an air of doubt not a little gratifying to so withered a woman.

“He used to dine at our house two or three times a week,” she said; “he was so fond of us!  We could appreciate him, and artists like the society of those who relish their wit.  My husband was, besides, his one surviving relative.  So when, quite unexpectedly, M. de Marville came into the property, M. le Comte preferred to take over the whole collection to save it from a sale by auction; and we ourselves much preferred to dispose of it in that way, for it would have been so painful to us to see the beautiful things, in which our dear cousin was so much interested, all scattered abroad.  Elie Magus valued them, and in that way I became possessed of the cottage that your uncle built, and I hope you will do us the honor of coming to see us there.”