“But you must be my ally,” he answered.  “Now listen, your husband has spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration; the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan.  I want to know what it is.  Find out, and tell me to-night.”

“I will,” she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.

“Madame, the hair-dresser.”

“At last!” thought Celestine.  “I don’t see how I should have got out of it if he had delayed much longer.”

“You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go,” said des Lupeaulx, rising.  “You shall be invited to the first select party given by his Excellency’s wife.”

“Ah, you are an angel!” she cried.  “And I see now how much you love me; you love me intelligently.”

“To-night, dear child,” he said, “I shall find out at the Opera what journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords together.”

“Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not?  I have taken pains to get the things you like best—­”

“All that is so like love,” said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went downstairs, “that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a long time.  Well, if she is tricking me I shall know it.  I’ll set the cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and I’ll read her heart.  Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all, women are just what we men are.  Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and living here in the rue Duphot!—­a rare piece of luck and worth cultivating,” thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down the staircase.

“Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny enough in a dressing-gown!” thought Celestine, “but the harpoon is in his back and he’ll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that invitation.  He has played his part in my comedy.”

When, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress for dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before him the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian Nights, the luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.

“Who gave you that?” he asked, thunderstruck.

“Monsieur des Lupeaulx.”

“So he has been here!” cried Rabourdin, with a look which would certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye.

“And he is coming back to dinner,” she said.  “Why that startled air?”

“My dear,” replied Rabourdin, “I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx; such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me!  Do you think I don’t see why?”

“The man seems to me,” she said, “to have good taste; you can’t expect me to blame him.  I really don’t know anything more flattering to a woman than to please a worn-out palate.  After—­”

“A truce to nonsense, Celestine.  Spare a much-tried man.  I cannot get an audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake.”