ould be a
sin to veil it. It is like that of the Princesse de K., whose hair I
dressed yesterday. Lisette, get the powder ready. Ears like yours,
Madame, are not numerous.

Madame--You were saying--

Silvani--Would your ear, Madame, be so modest as not to listen?

Madame's hair is at length dressed. Silvani sheds a light cloud of
scented powder over his work, on which he casts a lingering look of
satisfaction, then bows and retires.

In passing through the anteroom, he runs against Monsieur, who is walking
up and down.

Silvani--A thousand pardons, I have the honor to wish you good night.

Monsieur--(from the depths of his turned-up collar) Good-night.

A quarter of an hour later the sound of a carriage is heard. Madame is
ready, her coiffure suits her, she smiles at herself in the glass as she
slips the glove-stretchers into the twelve-button gloves.

Monsieur has made a failure of his necktie and broken off three buttons.
Traces of decided ill-humor are stamped on his features.

Monsieur--Come, let us go down, the carriage is waiting; it is a quarter
past eleven. (Aside.) Another sleepless night. Sharp, coachman; Rue de la
Pepiniere, number 224.

They reach the street in question. The Rue de la Pepiniere is in a
tumult. Policemen are hurriedly making way through the crowd. In the
distance, confused cries and a rapidly approaching, rumbling sound are
heard. Monsieur thrusts his head out of the window.

Monsieur--What is it, Jean?

Coachman--A fire, Monsieur; here come the firemen.

Monsieur--Go on all the same to number 224.

Coachman--We are there, Monsieur; the fire is at number 224.

Doorkeeper of the House--(quitting a group of people and approaching the
carriage)--You are, I presume, Monsieur, one of the guests of Madame de
Lyr? She is terror-stricken; the fire is in her rooms. She can not
receive any one.

Madame--(excitedly)--It is scandalous.

Monsieur--(humming)--Heart-breaking, heartbreaking! (To the coachman.)
Home again, quickly; I am all but asleep. (He stretches himself out and
turns up his collar.) ( Aside.) After all, I am the better for a
well-cooked partridge.

CHAPTER XVI

A FALSE ALARM

Every time I visit Paris, which, unhappily, is too often, it rains in
torrents. It makes no difference whether I change the time of starting
from that which I had fixed upon at first, stop on the way, travel at
night, resort, in short, to a thousand devices to deceive the
barometer-at