“No,” said Thuillier, “it ought to be success’ress; just as we say may’ress, dropping the O, you know.”

“Is it full dress?” asked Madame Minard.

“Heavens! no,” replied Thuillier; “you would get me finely scolded by my sister.  No, it is only a family party.  Under the Empire, madame, we all devoted ourselves to dancing.  At that great epoch of our national life they thought as much of a fine dancer as they did of a good soldier.  Nowadays the country is so matter-of-fact.”

“Well, we won’t talk politics,” said the mayor, smiling.  “The King is grand; he is very able.  I have a deep admiration for my own time, and for the institutions which we have given to ourselves.  The King, you may be sure, knows very well what he is doing by the development of industries.  He is struggling hand to hand against England; and we are doing him more harm during this fruitful peace than all the wars of the Empire would have done.”

“What a deputy Minard would make!” cried Zelie, naively.  “He practises speechifying at home.  You’ll help us to get him elected, won’t you, Thuillier?”

“We won’t talk politics now,” replied Thuillier.  “Come at five.”

“Will that little Vinet be there?” asked Minard; “he comes, no doubt, for Celeste.”

“Then he may go into mourning,” replied Thuillier.  “Brigitte won’t hear of him.”

Zelie and Minard exchanged a smile of satisfaction.

“To think that we must hob-nob with such common people, all for the sake of our son!” cried Zelie, when Thuillier was safely down the staircase, to which the mayor had accompanied him.

“Ha! he thinks to be deputy!” thought Thuillier, as he walked away.  “These grocers! nothing satisfies them.  Heavens! what would Napoleon say if he could see the government in the hands of such people!  I’m a trained administrator, at any rate.  What a competitor, to be sure!  I wonder what la Peyrade will say?”

The ambitious ex-beau now went to invite the whole Laudigeois family for the evening, after which he went to the Collevilles’, to make sure that Celeste should wear a becoming gown.  He found Flavie rather pensive.  She hesitated about coming, but Thuillier overcame her indecision.

“My old and ever young friend,” he said, taking her round the waist, for she was alone in her little salon, “I won’t have any secret from you.  A great affair is in the wind for me.  I can’t tell you more than that, but I can ask you to be particularly charming to a certain young man—­”

“Who is it?”

“La Peyrade.”

“Why, Charles?”

“He holds my future in his hands.  Besides, he’s a man of genius.  I know what that is.  He’s got this sort of thing,”—­and Thuillier made the gesture of a dentist pulling out a back tooth.  “We must bind him to us, Flavie.  But, above all, don’t let him see his power.  As for me, I shall just give and take with him.”