patiently, "The hair-dresser
already!"--an exclamation as little agreeable to des Lupeaulx as the
sight of des Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She immediately escaped into
her bedroom, where chaos reigned; a jumble of furniture to be put out
of sight, with other heterogeneous articles of more or rather less
elegance,--a domestic carnival, in short. The bold des Lupeaulx followed
the handsome figure, so piquant did she seem to him in her dishabille.
There is something indescribably alluring to the eye in a portion of
flesh seen through an hiatus in the undergarment, more attractive far
than when it rises gracefully above the circular curve of the velvet
bodice, to the vanishing line of the prettiest swan's-neck that ever
lover kissed before a ball. When the eye dwells on a woman in full dress
making exhibition of her magnificent white shoulders, do we not fancy
that we see the elegant dessert of a grand dinner? But the glance that
glides through the disarray of muslins rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it
were, a feast of stolen fruit glowing between the leaves on a garden
wall.

"Stop! wait!" cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of the
disordered room.

She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and the
man-servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at
the Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a moment,
another phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look, quite in
keeping with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the fugitive;
we say it to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in this at
least.

"You!" she said, coming forward, "at this hour? What has happened?"

"Very serious things," answered des Lupeaulx. "You and I must understand
each other now."

Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood the
matter.

"My principle vice," she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do not mix
up affections with politics; let us talk politics,--business, if you
will,--the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor
a whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together
things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is my
natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our own."

Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners were
producing their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing his roughness
into sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to his obligatio