lligence, your charms, you would have a magnificent prospect."

Then he added abruptly, as if to initiate her into the joys of the
dramatic art:

"But it occurs to me that perhaps you have not supped! Excitement makes
one hungry; sit there, and take this soup. I am sure that you haven't
eaten soup 'au fromage' for a long while."

He turned the closet topsy-turvy to find her a spoon and a napkin; and
she took her seat opposite him, assisting him and laughing a little at
the difficulties attending her entertainment. She was less pale already,
and there was a pretty sparkle in her eyes, composed of the tears of a
moment before and the present gayety.

The strolling actress! All her happiness in life was lost forever:
honor, family, wealth. She was driven from her house, stripped,
dishonored. She had undergone all possible humiliations and disasters.
That did not prevent her supping with a wonderful appetite and joyously
holding her own under Delobelle's jocose remarks concerning her vocation
and her future triumphs. She felt light-hearted and happy, fairly
embarked for the land of Bohemia, her true country. What more would
happen to her? Of how many ups and downs was her new, unforeseen, and
whimsical existence to consist? She thought about that as she fell
asleep in Desiree's great easy-chair; but she thought of her revenge,
too--her cherished revenge which she held in her hand, all ready for
use, and so unerring, so fierce!

CHAPTER XXII. THE NEW EMPLOYEE OF THE HOUSE OF FROMONT

It was broad daylight when Fromont Jeune awoke. All night long, between
the drama that was being enacted below him and the festivity in joyous
progress above, he slept with clenched fists, the deep sleep of complete
prostration like that of a condemned man on the eve of his execution or
of a defeated General on the night following his disaster; a sleep from
which one would wish never to awake, and in which, in the absence of all
sensation, one has a foretaste of death.

The bright light streaming through his curtains, made more dazzling
by the deep snow with which the garden and the surrounding roofs were
covered, recalled him to the consciousness of things as they were. He
felt a shock throughout his whole being, and, even before his mind
began to work, that vague impression of melancholy which misfortunes,
momentarily forgotten, leave in their place. All the familiar noises of
the factory, the dull throbbing of the machinery, were