“You are not in a hurry?” she now asked Bloch.

“No, not at all. I wanted to go because I am not very well; in fact there is some talk of my taking a cure at Vichy for my biliary ducts,” he explained, articulating the last words with a fiendish irony.

“Why, that’s where my nephew Châtellerault’s got to go, you must fix it up together. Is he still in the room? He’s a nice boy, you know,” said Mme. de Villeparisis, and may quite well have meant what she said, feeling that two people whom she knew had no reason not to be friends with each other.

“Oh, I dare say he wouldn’t care about that⁠—I don’t really know him⁠—at least I barely know him. He is sitting over there,” stammered Bloch in an ecstasy of confusion.