“You must enjoy yourself finely to-day, boys,” she cried.  “We will all go out.  Shall I take you to the fair at Saint-Cloud?”

Yes, Edgar was all for going, because of the roundabouts.

Madame Ewans rose from the piano, patted her pale flaxen hair in place with a pretty gesture, and gave a sidelong look in the mirror as she passed.

“I’m going to dress,” she told them; “I shall not be long.”

While she was dressing, Edgar sat at the piano trying to pick out a tune from an opera bouffe, and Jean, perched uncomfortably on the edge of his chair, stared about the room at a host of strange and sumptuous objects that seemed in some mysterious way to be part and parcel of their beautiful owner, and affected him almost as strangely as she herself had done.

Preceded by a faint waft of scent and a rustle of silk, she reappeared, tying the strings of the hat that made a dainty diadem above her smiling eyes.

Edgar looked at her curiously: 

“Why, mother, there’s something...  I don’t know what. . . something that alters you.”

She glanced in the mirror, examining her hair, which showed pale violet shadows amid the flaxen plaits.

“Oh! it’s nothing,” she said; “only I have put some powder in my hair.  Like the Empress,” she added, and broke into another smile.

As she was drawing on her gloves, a ring was heard, and the maid came in to tell her mistress that Monsieur Delbeque was waiting to see her.

Madame Ewans pouted and declared she could not receive him, whereupon the maid spoke a few words in a very peremptory whisper.  Madame Ewans shrugged her shoulders.

“Stay where you are!” she told the boys, and passed into the dining-room, whence the murmur of two voices could presently be heard.

Jean asked Edgar, under his breath, who the gentleman was.

“Monsieur Delbeque,” Edgar informed him.  “He keeps horses and a carriage.  He deals in pigs.  One evening he took us to the theatre, mother and me.”

Jean was surprised and rather shocked to find Monsieur Delbeque dealt in pigs.  But he hid his surprise and asked if he was a relation.

“Oh! no,” said Edgar, “he’s one of our friends.  It’s a long time... at least a year we have known him.”

Jean, harking back to his first idea, put the question: 

“Have you ever seen him selling his pigs?”

“How stupid you are!” retorted Edgar; “he deals in them wholesale.  Mother says it’s a famous trade.  He has a cigar-holder with an amber mouthpiece and a woman all naked carved in meerschaum.  Just think, the other day he came and told mother his wife was making him atrocious scenes.”

Madame Ewans put in her head at the half-open door: 

“Come along,” she said, and they set out.  No sooner were they in the street than a man, who was smoking, greeted Madame with a friendly wave of his gloved hand.  She muttered between her teeth: