The lawyer gave his name, and the woman ushered him into a dining-room, severely luxurious, where she asked him to wait.  A moment later, however, she returned, and admitted him into the most coquettish and splendid salon it was possible to insert beneath the low ceilings of an entresol.  The divinity of the place was seated before a writing-table covered with a Venetian cloth, in which gold glittered in little spots among the dazzling colors of the tapestry.

“Will you allow me, monsieur, to finish a letter of some importance?” she said.

The barrister bowed in sign of assent.  The handsome Hungarian then concluded a note on blue English paper, which she placed in an envelope; after sealing it carefully, she rang the bell.  The maid appeared immediately and lighted a little spirit lamp; above the lamp was suspended a sort of tiny crucible, in which was a drop of sealing-wax; as soon as this had melted, the maid poured it on the envelope, presenting to her mistress a seal with armorial bearings.  This the countess imprinted on the wax with her own beautiful hands, and then said:—­

“Take the letter at once to that address.”

The woman made a movement to take the letter, but, either from haste or inadvertence, the paper fell from her hand close to la Peyrade’s feet.  He stooped hastily to pick it up, and read the direction involuntarily.  It bore the words, “His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs”; the significant words, “For him only,” written higher up, seemed to give this missive a character of intimacy.

“Pardon, monsieur,” said the countess, receiving the paper, which he had the good taste to return to her own hands in order to show his eagerness to serve her.  “Be so good, mademoiselle, as to carry that in a way not to lose it,” she added in a dry tone to the unlucky maid.  The countess then left her writing-table and took her seat on a sofa covered with pearl-gray satin.

During these proceedings la Peyrade had the satisfaction of making an inventory of all the choice things by which he was surrounded.  Paintings by good masters detached themselves from walls of even tone; on a pier-table stood a very tall Japanese vase; before the windows the jardinieres were filled with lilium rubrum, showing its handsome reversely curling petals surmounted by white and red camellias and a dwarf magnolia from China, with flowers of sulphur white with scarlet edges.  In a corner was a stand of arms, of curious shapes and rich construction, explained, perhaps, by the lady’s Hungarian nationality —­always that of the hussar.  A few bronzes and statuettes of exquisite selection, chairs rolling softly on Persian carpets, and a perfect anarchy of stuffs of all kinds completed the arrangement of this salon, which the lawyer had once before visited with Brigitte and Thuillier before the countess moved into it.  It was so transformed that it seemed to him unrecognizable.  With a little more knowledge of the world la Peyrade would have been less surprised at the marvellous care given by the countess to the decoration of the room.  A woman’s salon is her kingdom, and her absolute domain; there, in the fullest sense of the word, she reigns, she governs; there she offers battle, and nearly always comes off victorious.