“Go, madame,” he said, “go.  Your dress is thought out.  When you come back, mademoiselle, bring me that piece of pink satin; you know, the one that I was keeping for some great occasion.”

Thus Mme. Derline found herself with Mademoiselle Blanche in a trying-on room, which was a sort of little cabin lined with mirrors.  A quarter of an hour later, when the measures had been taken, Mme. Derline came back and discovered M. Arthur in the midst of pieces of satin of all colors, of crepes, of tulles, of laces, and of brocaded stuffs.

“No, no, not the pink satin,” he said to Mademoiselle Blanche, who was bringing the asked-for piece; “no, I have found something better.  Listen to me.  This is what I wish:  I have given up the pink, and I have decided on this, this peach-colored satin.  A classic robe, outlining all the fine lines and showing the suppleness of the body.  This robe must be very clinging—­hardly any underskirts.  It must be of surah.  Madame must be melted into it—­do you thoroughly understand?—­absolutely melted into the robe.  We will drop over the dress this crepe—­yes, that one, but in small, light pleats.  The crepe will be as a cloud thrown over the dress—­a transparent, vapory, impalpable cloud.  The arms are to be absolutely bare, as I already told you.  On each shoulder there must be a simple knot, showing the upper part of the arm.  Of what is the knot to be?  I’m still undecided—­I need to think it over—­till to-morrow, madame, till to-morrow.”

Mme. Derline came back the next day, and the next, and every day till the day before the famous Thursday; and each time that she came back, while awaiting her turn to try on, she ordered dresses, very simple ones, but yet costing from seven to eight hundred francs each.

And that was not all.  On the day of her first visit to M. Arthur, when Mme. Derline came out of the great house, she was broken-hearted—­positively broken-hearted—­at the sight of her brougham; it really did make a pitiful appearance among all the stylish carriages which were waiting in three rows and taking up half the street.  It was the brougham of her late mother-in-law, and it still rolled through the streets of Paris after fifteen years’ service.  Mme. Derline got into the woe-begone brougham to drive straight to a very well-known carriage-maker, and that evening, cleverly seizing the psychological moment, she explained to M. Derline that she had seen a certain little black coupe lined with blue satin that would frame delightfully her new dresses.

The coupe was bought the next day by M. Derline, who also was beginning fully to realize the extent of his new duties.  But the next day it was discovered that it was impossible to harness to that jewel of a coupe the old horse who had pulled the old carriage, and no less impossible to put on the box the old coachman who drove the old horse.

This is how on Thursday, April 25th, at half-past ten in the evening, a very pretty chestnut mare, driven by a very correct English coachman, took M. and Mme. Derline to the Palmer’s.  They still lacked something—­a little groom to sit beside the English coachman.  But a certain amount of discretion had to be employed.  The most beautiful woman in Paris intended to wait ten days before asking for the little groom.