f her hands lightly over her
glossy bands of jet-black hair, and then seeing that the baron was
quietly observing her, with eyes that showed no trace of drowsiness, she
smiled radiantly upon him as she made a low and most graceful curtsey.

"I am very sorry," said de Sigognac, as he rose to acknowledge her
salute, "that the ruinous condition of this chateau, which verily seems
better fitted to receive phantoms than real living guests, would not
permit me to offer you more comfortable accommodations. If I had been
able to follow my inclinations, I should have lodged you in a luxurious
chamber, where you could have reposed between fine linen sheets, under
silken curtains, instead of resting uneasily in that worm-eaten old
chair."

"Do not be sorry about anything, my lord, I pray you," answered the
soubrette with another brilliant smile; "but for your kindness we
should have been in far worse plight; forced to pass the night in the
poor old chariot, stuck fast in the mud; exposed to the cutting wind and
pelting rain. We should assuredly have found ourselves in wretched case
this morning. Besides, this chateau which you speak of so disparagingly
is magnificence itself in comparison with the miserable barns, open to
the weather, in which we have sometimes been forced to spend the night,
trying to sleep as best we might on bundles of straw, and making light
of our misery to keep our courage up."

While the baron and the actress were exchanging civilities the pedant's
chair, unable to support his weight any longer, suddenly gave way under
him, and he fell to the floor with a tremendous crash, which startled
the whole company. In his fall he had mechanically seized hold of the
table-cloth, and so brought nearly all the things upon it clattering
down with him. He lay sprawling like a huge turtle in the midst of them
until the tyrant, after rubbing his eyes and stretching his burly limbs,
came to the rescue, and held out a helping hand, by aid of which the old
actor managed with some difficulty to scramble to his feet.

"Such an accident as that could never happen to Matamore," said Herode,
with his resounding laugh; "he might fall into a spider's web without
breaking through it."

"That's true," retorted the shadow of a man, in his turn stretching his
long attenuated limbs and yawning tremendously, "but then, you know, not
everybody has the advantage of being a second Polyphemus, a mountain of
flesh and bones, like you, or