hty contempt and frigidity.

"Ah! it's you, Monsieur Froment," she said amiably, stepping towards
Mathieu and shaking his hand in cavalier fashion. "Is Madame Froment in
good health? Are the children flourishing as usual?"

Seguin was examining her dress, a gown of white silk trimmed with
unbleached lace, and he suddenly gave way to one of those horribly
rude fits which burst forth at times amid all his great affectation of
politeness. "What! have you kept us waiting all this time to put that
rag on? Well, you never looked a greater fright in your life!"

And she had entered the room convinced that she looked charming! She
made an effort to control herself, but her girlish face darkened and
assumed an expression of haughty, vindictive revolt. Then she slowly
turned her eyes towards the friend who was present, and who was gazing
at her with ecstasy, striving to accentuate the slavish submissiveness
of his attitude.

"You look delicious!" he murmured; "that gown is a marvel."

Seguin laughed and twitted Santerre on his obsequiousness towards women.
Valentine, mollified by the compliment, soon recovered her birdlike
gayety, and such free and easy conversation ensued between the trio that
Mathieu felt both stupefied and embarrassed. In fact, he would have gone
off at once had it not been for his desire to obtain from his landlord a
promise to repair the pavilion properly.

"Wait another moment," Valentine at last said to her husband; "I
told Celeste to bring the children, so that we might kiss them before
starting."

Mathieu wished to profit by this fresh delay, and sought to renew his
request; but Valentine was already rattling on again, talking of dining
at the most disreputable restaurant possible, and asking if at the first
performance which they were to attend they would see all the horrors
which had been hissed at the dress rehearsal the night before. She
appeared like a pupil of the two men between whom she stood. She even
went further in her opinions than they did, displaying the wildest
pessimism, and such extreme views on literature and art that
they themselves could not forbear laughing. Wagner was greatly
over-estimated, in her opinion; she asked for invertebrate music, the
free harmony of the passing wind. As for her moral views, they were
enough to make one shudder. She had got past the argumentative amours of
Ibsen's idiotic, rebellious heroines, and had now reached the theory of
pure intangible beaut