four
o’clock
It was one of those innocent _ liaisons _ which possess so much charm for the two thus attached to each other that they find the presence of a third person intolerable . The Vicomte de Beauseant , therefore , had himself set an example to the rest of the world by respecting , with as good a grace as might be , this morganatic union . Any one who came to call on the Vicomtesse in the early days of this friendship was sure to find the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto there . As , under the circumstances , Mme. de Beauseant could not very well shut her door against these visitors , she gave them such a cold reception , and showed so much interest in the study of the ceiling , that no one could fail to understand how much he bored her ; and when it became known in Paris that Mme. de Beauseant was bored by callers between two and four o'clock , she was left in perfect solitude during that interval . She went to the Bouffons or to the Opera with M. de Beauseant and M. d'Ajuda-Pinto ; and M. de Beauseant , like a well-bred man of the world , always left his wife and the Portuguese as soon as he had installed them . But M. d'Ajuda-Pinto must marry , and a Mlle. de Rochefide was the young lady . In the whole fashionable world there was but one person who as yet knew nothing of the arrangement , and that was Mme. de Beauseant .