“Proofs, indeed! yes, I’ll look out for proofs,” she said.  “I’m not to be caught with fine words, not I!  He is an amiable fellow; but before I take him into my heart I shall study him a little closer.”

After inviting Dutocq, Thuillier, having bedizened himself, went to the hotel Minard, rue des Macons-Sorbonne, to capture the stout Zelie, and gloss over the shortness of the invitation.

Minard had purchased one of those large and sumptuous habitations which the old religious orders built about the Sorbonne, and as Thuillier mounted the broad stone steps with an iron balustrade, that proved how arts of the second class flourished under Louis XIII., he envied both the mansion and its occupant,—­the mayor.

This vast building, standing between a courtyard and garden, is noticeable as a specimen of the style, both noble and elegant, of the reign of Louis XIII., coming singularly, as it did, between the bad taste of the expiring renaissance and the heavy grandeur of Louis XIV., at its dawn.  This transition period is shown in many public buildings.  The massive scroll-work of several facades—­that of the Sorbonne, for instance,—­and columns rectified according to the rules of Grecian art, were beginning to appear in this architecture.

A grocer, a lucky adulterator, now took the place of the former ecclesiastical governor of an institution called in former times L’Economat; an establishment connected with the general agency of the old French clergy, and founded by the long-sighted genius of Richelieu.  Thuillier’s name opened for him the doors of the salon, where sat enthroned in velvet and gold, amid the most magnificent “Chineseries,” the poor woman who weighed with all her avoirdupois on the hearts and minds of princes and princesses at the “popular balls” of the palace.

“Isn’t she a good subject for ’La Caricature’?” said a so-called lady of the bedchamber to a duchess, who could hardly help laughing at the aspect of Zelie, glittering with diamonds, red as a poppy, squeezed into a gold brocade, and rolling along like the casts of her former shop.

“Will you pardon me, fair lady,” began Thuillier, twisting his body, and pausing in pose number two of his imperial repertory, “for having allowed this invitation to remain in my desk, thinking, all the while, that it was sent?  It is for to-day, but perhaps I am too late?”

Zelie examined her husband’s face as he approached them to receive Thuillier; then she said:—­

“We intended to drive into the country and dine at some chance restaurant; but we’ll give up that idea and all the more readily because, in my opinion, it is getting devilishly vulgar to drive out of Paris on Sundays.”

“We will have a little dance to the piano for the young people, if enough come, as I hope they will.  I have sent a line to Phellion, whose wife is intimate with Madame Pron, the successor—­”

“Successor_ess_,” interrupted Madame Minard.