d’Espard. It belongs to one of my cousins.” “All this talk about his cousin’s garden,” Brichot murmured to Cottard, “may, like his pedigree, be of some importance to this worthy Baron. But what interest can it have for us who are not privileged to walk in it, do not know the lady, and possess no titles of nobility?” For Brichot had no suspicion that one might be interested in a gown and in a garden as works of art, and that it was in the pages of Balzac that M, de Charlus saw, in his mind’s eye, the garden paths of Mme. de Cadignan. The Baron went on: “But you know her,” he said to me, speaking of this cousin, and, by way of flattering me, addressing himself to me as to a person who, exiled amid the little clan, was to M. de Charlus, if not a citizen of his world, at any rate a visitor to it. “Anyhow you must have seen her at Mme. de Villeparisis’s.” “Is that the Marquise de Villeparisis who owns the château at Baucreux?” asked Brichot with a captivated air. “Yes, do you know her?” inquired M.