“Ah! it is very kind of you to accept our invitation,” said Valerie gayly as she pressed both Mathieu’s hands.  “What a pity that Madame Froment could not come with you!  Reine, why don’t you relieve the gentleman of his hat?”

Then she immediately continued:  “We have a nice light anteroom, you see.  Would you like to glance over our flat while the eggs are being boiled?  That will always be one thing done, and you will then at least know where you are lunching.”

All this was said in such an agreeable way, and Morange on his side smiled so good-naturedly, that Mathieu willingly lent himself to this innocent display of vanity.  First came the parlor, the corner room, the walls of which were covered with pearl-gray paper with a design of golden flowers, while the furniture consisted of some of those white lacquered Louis XVI. pieces which makers turn out by the gross.  The rosewood piano showed like a big black blot amidst all the rest.  Then, overlooking the Boulevard de Grenelle, came Reine’s bedroom, pale blue, with furniture of polished pine.  Her parents’ room, a very small apartment, was at the other end of the flat, separated from the parlor by the dining-room.  The hangings adorning it were yellow; and a bedstead, a washstand, and a wardrobe, all of thuya, had been crowded into it.  Finally the classic “old carved oak” triumphed in the dining-room, where a heavily gilded hanging lamp flashed like fire above the table, dazzling in its whiteness.

“Why, it’s delightful,” Mathieu, repeated, by way of politeness; “why, it’s a real gem of a place.”

In their excitement, father, mother, and daughter never ceased leading him hither and thither, explaining matters to him and making him feel the things.  He was most struck, by the circumstance that the place recalled something he had seen before; he seemed to be familiar with the arrangement of the drawing-room, and with the way in which the nicknacks in the bedchamber were set out.  And all at once he remembered.  Influenced by envy and covert admiration, the Moranges, despite themselves, no doubt, had tried to copy the Beauchenes.  Always short of money as they were, they could only and by dint of great sacrifices indulge in a species of make-believe luxury.  Nevertheless they were proud of it, and, by imitating the envied higher class from afar, they imagined that they drew nearer to it.

“And then,” Morange exclaimed, as he opened the dining-room window, “there is also this.”

Outside, a balcony ran along the house-front, and at that height the view was really a very fine one, similar to that obtained from the Beauchene mansion but more extensive, the Seine showing in the distance, and the heights of Passy rising above the nearer and lower house-roofs.

Valerie also called attention to the prospect.  “It is magnificent, is it not?” said she; “far better than the few trees that one can see from the quay.”