“You aren’t going to Mme. de Sagan’s ball this evening?” M. de Norpois asked Mme. de Villeparisis, to cut short his conversation with Bloch. My friend had not failed to interest the Ambassador, who told us afterwards, not without a quaint simplicity, thinking no doubt of the traces that survived in Bloch’s speech of the neo-Homeric manner which he had on the whole outgrown: “He is rather amusing, with that way of speaking, a trifle old fashioned, a trifle solemn. You expect him to come out with ‘The Learned Sisters,’ like Lamartine or Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. It has become quite uncommon in the youth of the present day, as it was indeed in the generation before them. We ourselves were inclined to be romantic.” But however exceptional his companion may have seemed to him, M. de Norpois decided that the conversation had lasted long enough.