“What is it?” asked Coralie.

“Nothing.”

“Ring the bell,” said Coralie, smiling to herself at Camusot’s want of spirit.—­“Berenice,” she said, when the Norman handmaid appeared, “just bring me a button-hook, for I must put on these confounded boots again.  Don’t forget to bring them to my dressing-room to-night.”

“What? . . . your boots?” . . . faltered out Camusot, breathing more freely.

“And whose should they be?” she demanded haughtily.  “Were you beginning to believe?—­great stupid!  Oh! and he would believe it too,” she went on, addressing Berenice.—­“I have a man’s part in What’s-his-name’s piece, and I have never worn a man’s clothes in my life before.  The bootmaker for the theatre brought me these things to try if I could walk in them, until a pair can be made to measure.  He put them on, but they hurt me so much that I have taken them off, and after all I must wear them.”

“Don’t put them on again if they are uncomfortable,” said Camusot.  (The boots had made him feel so very uncomfortable himself.)

“Mademoiselle would do better to have a pair made of very thin morocco, sir, instead of torturing herself as she did just now; but the management is so stingy.  She was crying, sir; if I was a man and loved a woman, I wouldn’t let her shed a tear, I know.  You ought to order a pair for her——­”

“Yes, yes,” said Camusot.  “Are you just getting up, Coralie?”

“Just this moment; I only came in at six o’clock after looking for you everywhere.  I was obliged to keep the cab for seven hours.  So much for your care of me; you forget me for a wine-bottle.  I ought to take care of myself now when I am to play every night so long as the Alcalde draws.  I don’t want to fall off after that young man’s notice of me.”

“That is a handsome boy,” said Camusot.

“Do you think so?  I don’t admire men of that sort; they are too much like women; and they do not understand how to love like you stupid old business men.  You are so bored with your own society.”

“Is monsieur dining with madame?” inquired Berenice.

“No, my mouth is clammy.”

“You were nicely screwed yesterday.  Ah!  Papa Camusot, I don’t like men who drink, I tell you at once——­”

“You will give that young man a present, I suppose?” interrupted Camusot.

“Oh! yes.  I would rather do that than pay as Florine does.  There, go away with you, good-for-nothing that one loves; or give me a carriage to save time in future.”

“You shall go in your own carriage to-morrow to your manager’s dinner at the Rocher de Cancale.  The new piece will not be given next Sunday.”

“Come, I am just going to dine,” said Coralie, hurrying Camusot out of the room.

An hour later Berenice came to release Lucien.  Berenice, Coralie’s companion since her childhood, had a keen and subtle brain in her unwieldy frame.