de a sign to the Duke and Tullia, and
the three disappeared with the first symptoms of vociferous nonsense
which precede the grotesque scenes of an orgy in its final stage.
Coralie and Lucien had been behaving like children all the evening; as
soon as the wine was uppermost in Camusot's head, they made good their
escape down the staircase and sprang into a cab. Camusot subsided under
the table; Matifat, looking round for him, thought that he had gone home
with Coralie, left his guests to smoke, laugh, and argue, and followed
Florine to her room. Daylight surprised the party, or more accurately,
the first dawn of light discovered one man still able to speak, and
Blondet, that intrepid champion, was proposing to the assembled sleepers
a health to Aurora the rosy-fingered.

Lucien was unaccustomed to orgies of this kind. His head was very
tolerably clear as he came down the staircase, but the fresh air was
too much for him; he was horribly drunk. When they reached the handsome
house in the Rue de Vendome, where the actress lived, Coralie and her
waiting-woman were obliged to assist the poet to climb to the first
floor. Lucien was ignominiously sick, and very nearly fainted on the
staircase.

"Quick, Berenice, some tea! Make some tea," cried Coralie.

"It is nothing; it is the air," Lucien got out, "and I have never taken
so much before in my life."

"Poor boy! He is as innocent as a lamb," said Berenice, a stalwart
Norman peasant woman as ugly as Coralie was pretty. Lucien, half
unconscious, was laid at last in bed. Coralie, with Berenice's
assistance, undressed the poet with all a mother's tender care.

"It is nothing," he murmured again and again. "It is the air. Thank you,
mamma."

"How charmingly he says 'mamma,'" cried Coralie, putting a kiss on his
hair.

"What happiness to love such an angel, mademoiselle! Where did you pick
him up? I did not think a man could be as beautiful as you are," said
Berenice, when Lucien lay in bed. He was very drowsy; he knew nothing
and saw nothing; Coralie made him swallow several cups of tea, and left
him to sleep.

"Did the porter see us? Was there anyone else about?" she asked.

"No; I was sitting up for you."

"Does Victoire know anything?"

"Rather not!" returned Berenice.

Ten hours later Lucien awoke to meet Coralie's eyes. She had watched by
him as he slept; he knew it, poet that he was. It was almost noon, but
she still wore the delicate dress, abominably stain