"Tell me about that!" he said.

"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!" cried several voices.

"You, Bolkonski, don't know," said Bilibin turning to Prince Andrew, "that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing among the women!" "La femme est la compagne de l'homme,"* announced Prince Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.

*"Woman is man's companion.

" Bilibin and the rest of "ours" burst out laughing in Hippolyte's face, and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom--he had to admit--he had almost been jealous on his wife's account, was the butt of this set.