with too ardent a breath, for, throwing her arms apart,
she exclaimed:

"It can't be helped! I am so happy!"

CHAPTER XX

At Easter an event of great importance increased her joy. She was
engaged at the Comedie-Francaise. For some time past, without mentioning
the subject, she had been trying for this engagement. Her mother had
helped her in the steps she had taken. Madame Nanteuil was lovable now
that she was loved. She now wore straight corsets and petticoats that
she could display anywhere. She frequented the offices of the Ministry,
and it is said that, being solicited by the deputy-chief of a department
in the Beaux-Arts, she had yielded with very good grace. At least, so
Pradel said.

He would exclaim joyfully:

"You wouldn't recognize her now, Mother Nanteuil! She has become most
desirable, and I like her better than her little vixen of a daughter.
She has a better disposition."

Like the rest of them, Felicie had disdained, despised, disparaged the
Comedie-Francaise. She had said, as all the others did: "I should
hardly care to get into that house." And no sooner did she belong to it
than she was filled with proud and joyful exultation. What increased her
pleasure twofold was that she was to make her debut in _L'Ecole des
Femmes_. She already studying the part of Agnes with an obscure old
professor, Monsieur Maxime, of whom she thought highly because he was
acquainted with all the traditions of the stage. At night she was
playing Cecile in _La Grille_, and she was living in a feverish turmoil
of work she received a letter in which Robert de Ligny informed her that
he was returning to Paris.

During his stay at The Hague he had made certain experiments which had
proved to him the strength of his love for Felicie. He had had women who
were reported to be pretty and pleasing. But neither Madame Bourmdernoot
of Brussels, tall and fresh looking, nor the sisters Van Cruysen,
milliners on the Vijver, nor Suzette Berger of the Folies-Marigny, then
on tour through Northern Europe, had given him a sense of pleasure in
its completeness. When in their company he had regretted Felicie, and
had discovered that of all women, he desired her alone. Had it not been
for Madame Bourmdernoot, the sisters Van Cruysen, and Suzette
Berger, he would never have known how priceless Felicie Nanteuil was to
him. If one must be literal it may be argued that he was unfaithful to
her. That is the correct expression. There are