lding
out her foot to Madame Michon, the dresser, who was fitting on a pair of
little black slippers with red heels. Dr. Trublet, the physician
attached to the theatre, and a friend of the actress's, was resting his
bald cranium on a cushion of the divan, his hands folded upon his
stomach and his short legs crossed.

"What else, my dear?" he inquired of her.

"Oh, I don't know! Fits of suffocation; giddiness; and, all of a sudden,
an agonizing pain, as if I were going to die. That's the worst of all."

"Do you sometimes feel as though you must laugh or cry for no apparent
reason, about nothing at all?"

"That I cannot tell you, for in this life one has so many reasons for
laughing or crying!"

"Are you subject to attacks of dizziness?"

"No. But, just think, doctor, at night, I see an imaginary cat, under
the chairs or the table, gazing at me with fiery eyes!"

"Try not to dream of cats any more," said Madame Michon, "because that's
a bad omen. To see a cat is a sign that you'll be betrayed by friends,
or deceived by a woman."

"But it is not in my dreams that I see a cat! It's when I'm wide awake!"

Trublet, who was in attendance at the Odeon once a month only, was given
to looking in as a friend almost every evening. He was fond of the
actresses, delighted in chatting with them, gave them good advice, and
listened with delicacy to their confidences. He promised Felicie that he
would write her a prescription at once.

"We'll attend to the stomach, my dear child, and you'll see no more cats
under the chairs and tables."

Madame Michon was adjusting the actress's stays. The doctor, suddenly
gloomy, watched her tugging at the laces.

"Don't scowl," said Felicie. "I am never tight-laced. With my waist I
should surely be a fool if I were." And she added, thinking of her best
friend in the theatre, "It's all very well for Fagette, who has no
shoulders and no hips; she's simply straight up and down. Michon, you
can pull a little tighter still. I know you are no lover of waists,
doctor. Nevertheless, I cannot wear swaddling bands like those aesthetic
creatures. Just slip your hand into my stays, and you'll see that I
don't squeeze myself too tight."

He denied that he was inimical to stays; he only condemned them when too
tightly laced. He deplored the fact that women should have no sense of
the harmony of line; that they should associate with smallness of the
waist an idea of grace and beauty, not realizing th