of her plume-crowned head-dress it would
seem as if she sought by art to add to the inches she had received
from Nature. For the rest she wore a pink petticoat, very extravagantly
beflounced, and a pink corsage cut extravagantly low. In one hand she
carried a fan--hardly as a weapon against heat, seeing that the winter
was not yet out--in the other a huge bunch of early roses.

"Te voile!" was her greeting, merrily--roguishly--delivered, and if the
Revolution had done nothing else for her, it had, at least, enabled her
to address La Boulaye by the "Thou" of intimacy which the new vocabulary
prescribed.

La Boulaye rose, laid aside his pen, and politely, if coolly, returned
her greeting and set a chair for her.

"You are," said he, "a very harbinger of Spring, Citoyenne, with your
flowers and your ravishing toilette."

"Ah! I please you, then, for once," said she without the least
embarrassment. "Tell me--how do you find me?" And, laughing, she turned
about that he might admire her from all points of view.

He looked at her gravely for a moment, so gravely that the laughter
began to fade from her eyes.

"I find you charming, Citoyenne," he answered at last. "You remind me of
Diana."

"Compliments?" quoth she, her eyebrows going up and her eyes beaming
with surprise and delight. "Compliments from La Boulaye! But surely it
is the end of the world. Tell me, mon ami," she begged, greedily angling
for more, "in what do I remind you of the sylvan goddess?"

"In the scantiness of your raiment, Citoyenne," he answered acidly. "It
sorts better with Arcadia than with Paris."

Her eyebrows came down, her cheeks flushed with resentment and
discomfiture. To cover this she flung her roses among the papers of his
writing-table, and dropping into a chair she fanned herself vigorously.

"Citoyenne, you relieve my anxieties," said he. "I feared that you stood
in danger of freezing."

"To freeze is no more than one might expect in your company," she
answered, stifling her anger.

He made no reply. He moved to the window, and stood drumming absently
on the panes. He was inured to these invasions on the part of Cecile
Deshaix and to the bold, unwomanly advances that repelled him. To-day
his patience with her was even shorter than its wont, haply because when
his official had announced a woman he had for a moment permitted himself
to think that it might be Suzanne. The silence grew awkward, and at last
he broke it.

"The Cit