However, before the young man had had time to take her hand, she raised her veil, and displayed a smiling face, rather pale, but quite unruffled.

“What! you have lighted up the place!” she exclaimed.  “Why?  I thought you hated candles in broad daylight!”

Malignon, who had been making ready to clasp her with a passionate gesture that he had been rehearsing, was put somewhat out of countenance by this remark, and hastened to explain that the day was too wretched, and that the windows looked on to waste patches of ground.  Besides, night was his special delight.

“Well, one never knows how to take you,” she retorted jestingly.  “Last spring, at my children’s ball, you made such a fuss, declaring that the place was like some cavern, some dead-house.  However, let us say that your taste has changed.”

She seemed to be paying a mere visit, and affected a courage which slightly deepened her voice.  This was the only indication of her uneasiness.  At times her chin twitched somewhat, as though she felt some uneasiness in her throat.  But her eyes were sparkling, and she tasted to the full the keen pleasure born of her imprudence.  She thought of Madame de Chermette, of whom such scandalous stories were related.  Good heavens! it seemed strange all the same.

“Let us have a look round,” she began.

And thereupon she began inspecting the apartment.  He followed in her footsteps, while she gazed at the furniture, examined the walls, looked upwards, and started back, chattering all the time.

“I don’t like your cretonne; it is so frightfully common!” said she.  “Where did you buy that abominable pink stuff?  There’s a chair that would be nice if the wood weren’t covered with gilding.  Not a picture, not a nick-nack—­only your chandelier and your candelabra, which are by no means in good style!  Ah well, my dear fellow; I advise you to continue laughing at my Japanese pavilion!”

She burst into a laugh, thus revenging herself on him for the old affronts which still rankled in her breast.

“Your taste is a pretty one, and no mistake!  You don’t know that my idol is worth more than the whole lot of your things!  A draper’s shopman wouldn’t have selected that pink stuff.  Was it your idea to fascinate your washerwoman?”

Malignon felt very much hurt, and did not answer.  He made an attempt to lead her into the inner room; but she remained on the threshold, declaring that she never entered such gloomy places.  Besides, she could see quite enough; the one room was worthy of the other.  The whole of it had come from the Saint-Antoine quarter.

But the hanging lamp was her special aversion.  She attacked it with merciless raillery—­what a trashy thing it was, such as some little work-girl with no furniture of her own might have dreamt of!  Why, lamps in the same style could be bought at all the bazaars at seven francs fifty centimes apiece.