like you for these
ideas."

The next moment, as her eyes fell on a door close to the pillar of the
alcove:

"That's the way you let your friends out, eh?"

And, in a familiar fashion, she laid her finger on his chin. He trembled
at the contact of her long hands, at the same time thin and soft. Round
her wrists she wore an edging of lace, and on the body of her green
dress lace embroidery, like a hussar. Her bonnet of black tulle, with
borders hanging down, concealed her forehead a little. Her eyes shone
underneath; an odour of patchouli escaped from her head-bands. The
carcel-lamp placed on a round table, shining down on her like the
footlights of a theatre, made her jaw protrude.

She said to him, in an unctuous tone, while she drew forth from her
purse three square slips of paper:

"You will take these from me?"

They were three tickets for Delmar's benefit performance.

"What! for him?"

"Certainly."

Mademoiselle Vatnaz, without giving a further explanation, added that
she adored him more than ever. If she were to be believed, the comedian
was now definitely classed amongst "the leading celebrities of the age."
And it was not such or such a personage that he represented, but the
very genius of France, the People. He had "the humanitarian spirit; he
understood the priesthood of Art." Frederick, in order to put an end to
these eulogies, gave her the money for the three seats.

"You need not say a word about this over the way. How late it is, good
heavens! I must leave you. Ah! I was forgetting the address--'tis the
Rue Grange-Batelier, number 14."

And, at the door:

"Good-bye, beloved man!"

"Beloved by whom?" asked Frederick. "What a strange woman!"

And he remembered that Dussardier had said to him one day, when talking
about her:

"Oh, she's not much!" as if alluding to stories of a by no means
edifying character.

Next morning he repaired to the Marechale's abode. She lived in a new
house, the spring-roller blinds of which projected into the street. At
the head of each flight of stairs there was a mirror against the wall;
before each window there was a flower-stand, and all over the steps
extended a carpet of oil-cloth; and when one got inside the door, the
coolness of the staircase was refreshing.

It was a man-servant who came to open the door, a footman in a red
waistcoat. On a bench in the anteroom a woman and two men, tradespeople,
no doubt, were waiting as if in a minister's vestibul