A lamp lit up the room, and the fire burned with a great bright flame.

“He’ll never get dry, and he’ll catch cold,” said Nana, seeing Georges beginning to shiver.

And there were no men’s trousers in her house!  She was on the point of calling the gardener back when an idea struck her.  Zoe, who was unpacking the trunks in the dressing room, brought her mistress a change of underwear, consisting of a shift and some petticoats with a dressing jacket.

“Oh, that’s first rate!” cried the young woman.  “Zizi can put ’em all on.  You’re not angry with me, eh?  When your clothes are dry you can put them on again, and then off with you, as fast as fast can be, so as not to have a scolding from your mamma.  Make haste!  I’m going to change my things, too, in the dressing room.”

Ten minutes afterward, when she reappeared in a tea gown, she clasped her hands in a perfect ecstasy.

“Oh, the darling!  How sweet he looks dressed like a little woman!”

He had simply slipped on a long nightgown with an insertion front, a pair of worked drawers and the dressing jacket, which was a long cambric garment trimmed with lace.  Thus attired and with his delicate young arms showing and his bright damp hair falling almost to his shoulders, he looked just like a girl.

“Why, he’s as slim as I am!” said Nana, putting her arm round his waist.  “Zoe, just come here and see how it suits him.  It’s made for him, eh?  All except the bodice part, which is too large.  He hasn’t got as much as I have, poor, dear Zizi!”

“Oh, to be sure, I’m a bit wanting there,” murmured Georges with a smile.

All three grew very merry about it.  Nana had set to work buttoning the dressing jacket from top to bottom so as to make him quite decent.  Then she turned him round as though he were a doll, gave him little thumps, made the skirt stand well out behind.  After which she asked him questions.  Was he comfortable?  Did he feel warm?  Zounds, yes, he was comfortable!  Nothing fitted more closely and warmly than a woman’s shift; had he been able, he would always have worn one.  He moved round and about therein, delighted with the fine linen and the soft touch of that unmanly garment, in the folds of which he thought he discovered some of Nana’s own warm life.

Meanwhile Zoe had taken the soaked clothes down to the kitchen in order to dry them as quickly as possible in front of a vine-branch fire.  Then Georges, as he lounged in an easy chair, ventured to make a confession.

“I say, are you going to feed this evening?  I’m dying of hunger.  I haven’t dined.”