e up to the
Countess--a few lines, as follows:

"Would Madame la Comtesse do Monsieur Lousteau the favor of receiving
him for a moment, and at once?"

This note was sealed with a seal which as lovers they had both used.
Madame de la Baudraye had had the word _Parce que_ engraved on a
genuine Oriental carnelian--a potent word--a woman's word--the word that
accounts for everything, even for the Creation.

The Countess had just finished dressing to go to the Opera; Friday was
her night in turn for her box. At the sight of this seal she turned
pale.

"I will come," she said, tucking the note into her dress.

She was firm enough to conceal her agitation, and begged her mother to
see the children put to bed. She then sent for Lousteau, and received
him in a boudoir, next to the great drawing-room, with open doors. She
was going to a ball after the Opera, and was wearing a beautiful dress
of brocade in stripes alternately plain and flowered with pale blue. Her
gloves, trimmed with tassels, showed off her beautiful white arms. She
was shimmering with lace and all the dainty trifles required by fashion.
Her hair, dressed _a la Sevigne_, gave her a look of elegance; a
necklace of pearls lay on her bosom like bubbles on snow.

"What is the matter, monsieur?" said the Countess, putting out her
foot from below her skirt to rest it on a velvet cushion. "I thought, I
hoped, I was quite forgotten."

"If I should reply _Never_, you would refuse to believe me," said
Lousteau, who remained standing, or walked about the room, chewing the
flowers he plucked from the flower-stands full of plants that scented
the room.

For a moment silence reigned. Madame de la Baudraye, studying Lousteau,
saw that he was dressed as the most fastidious dandy might have been.

"You are the only person in the world who can help me, or hold out a
plank to me--for I am drowning, and have already swallowed more than one
mouthful----" said he, standing still in front of Dinah, and seeming to
yield to an overpowering impulse. "Since you see me here, it is because
my affairs are going to the devil."

"That is enough," said she; "I understand."

There was another pause, during which Lousteau turned away, took out his
handkerchief, and seemed to wipe away a tear.

"How much do you want, Etienne," she went on in motherly tones. "We are
at this moment old comrades; speak to me as you would to--to Bixiou."

"To save my furniture from vanishing into thin a