If the little baroness was enchanted with me, I was equally enchanted with the baroness.  We two made the most tender, the most intimate, and the most united of families.  We comprehended, understood, and completed each other so well.  I had not to do with one of those mechanical dolls—­stupidly and brutally laced into a padded corset.  Between the little baroness and myself there was absolutely nothing but lace and fine linen.  We could confidentially and surely depend on one another.  The beauty of the little baroness was a real beauty, without garniture, conjuring, or trickery.

So the following Thursday I went to the Austrian Embassy, and a week later to the Princess Mathilde’s.  But, alas! the next morning the little baroness said to her maid:  “Hermance, take that dress to the reserve.  I love it, and I’d wear it every evening; but it has been seen sufficiently for this winter.  Yesterday several people said to me, ’Ah, that’s your dress of the Tuileries; it’s your dress of the Austrian Embassy.’  It must be given up till next year.  Good-bye, dear little dress.”

And, having said that, she placed her charming lips at hap-hazard among my laces and kissed me in the dearest way in the world.  Ah, how pleased and proud I was of that childish and sweet fellowship!  I remembered that the evening before, on our return, the little baroness had kissed her husband; but the kiss she had given him was a quick, dry kiss—­one of those hurried kisses with which one wishes to get through; whereas my kiss had been prolonged and passionate.  She had cordiality for the baron, and love for me.  The little baroness wasn’t twenty, and she was a coquette to the core.  I say this, in the first place, to excuse her, and, in the second place, to give an exact impression of her character.

So at noon, in the arms of Hermance, I made my entry to the reserve.  It was a dormitory of dresses, an immense room on the third story, very large, and lined with wardrobes of white oak, carefully locked.  In the middle of the room was an ottoman, on which Hermance deposited me; after which she slid back ten or twelve wardrobe doors, one after the other.  Dresses upon dresses!  I should never be able to tell how many.  All were hung in the air by silk tape on big triangles.  Hermance, however, seemed much embarrassed.

“In the reserve,” she murmured, “in the reserve; that is easy to say.  But where is there any room?  And this one needs a lot.”  At last Hermance, after having given a number of little taps to the right and left, succeeded in making a sort of slit, into which I had great difficulty in sliding.  Hermance gave me and my neighbors some more little taps to lump us together, and then shut the door.  Darkness reigned.  I was placed between a blue velvet dress and a mauve satin one.