charmed alike
society and the masses by her combination of elegant costumes and
pleasant smiles.

Her receptions were thronged by the great Jewish financiers. She gave
the most fashionable garden parties in the Republic. The newspapers
described her dresses and the milliners did not ask her to pay for them.
She went to Mass; she protected the chapel of St. Orberosia from the
ill-will of the people; and she aroused in aristocratic hearts the hope
of a fresh Concordat.

With her golden hair, grey eyes, and supple and slight though rounded
figure, she was indeed pretty. She enjoyed an excellent reputation and
she was so adroit, and calm, so much mistress of herself, that she would
have preserved it intact even if she had been discovered in the very act
of ruining it.

The session ended with a victory for the cabinet which, amid the
almost unanimous applause of the House, defeated a proposal for an
inquisitorial tax, and with a triumph for Madame Ceres who gave parties
in honour of three kings who were at the moment passing through Alca.

VI. THE SOFA OF THE FAVOURITE

The Prime Minister invited Monsieur and Madame Ceres to spend a couple
of weeks of the holidays in a little villa that he had taken in the
mountains, and in which he lived alone. The deplorable health of Madame
Paul Visire did not allow her to accompany her husband, and she remained
with her relatives in one of the southern provinces.

The villa had belonged to the mistress of one of the last Kings of Alca:
the drawing-room retained its old furniture, and in it was still to be
found the Sofa of the Favourite. The country was charming; a pretty blue
stream, the Aiselle, flowed at the foot of the hill that dominated the
villa. Hippolyte Ceres loved fishing; when engaged at this monotonous
occupation he often formed his best Parliamentary combinations, and
his happiest oratorical inspirations. Trout swarmed in the Aiselle; he
fished it from morning till evening in a boat that the Prime Minister
readily placed at is disposal.

In the mean time, Eveline and Paul Visire sometimes took a turn together
in the garden, or had a little chat in the drawing-room. Eveline,
although she recognised the attraction that Visire had for women, had
hitherto displayed towards him only an intermittent and superficial
coquetry, without any deep intentions or settled design. He was a
connoisseur and saw that she was pretty. The House and the Opera had
deprived him of