It was on one of those occasions that, having accompanied Mr. Jefferson
and d'Azay to the rue St. Honore in the latter's coach (Mr. Morris
promising to look in later), Mr. Calvert had the opportunity of speaking
at length with Madame de St. Andre for the first time since the
afternoon on the ice. When the three gentlemen entered the drawing-room
a numerous company was already assembled, the older members of which
were busy with quinze and lansquenet in a card-room that opened out of
the salon, the younger ones standing or sitting about in groups and
listening to a song which Monsieur de St. Aulaire, who was at the
harpsichord, had just begun. It was Blondel's song from Gretry's
"Richard Coeur de Lion," about which all Paris was crazy and which Garat
sang nightly with a prodigious success at the Opera. This aria Monsieur
de St. Aulaire essayed in faithful imitation of the great tenor's manner
and in a voice which showed traces of having once been beautiful, but
which age and excesses had now broken and rendered harsh and forced.
As Calvert saluted Adrienne, when the perfunctory applause which this
performance called forth had died away, he thought he had never seen her
look so lovely.
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