If there was a woman accustomed to dress, it was she:  a splendid dry-goods store could have been set up with the silks and the velvets, the satins and cashmeres, the muslins, the laces, and all the known tissues, that had passed over her shoulders.

Her elegance was quoted and copied.  And yet there was about her always and under all circumstances, an indescribable flavor of the parvenue.  Her gestures had remained trivial; her voice, common and vulgar.

Throwing herself into an arm-chair, and bursting into a loud laugh,

“Confess, my dear marquis,” she said, “that you are terribly astonished to see me thus drop upon you, without warning, at eleven o’clock in the morning.”

“I feel, above all, terribly flattered,” replied M. de Tregars, smiling.

With a rapid glance she was surveying the little study, the modest furniture, the papers piled on the desk, as if she had hoped that the dwelling would reveal to her something of the master’s ideas and projects.

“I was just coming from Van Klopen’s,” she resumed; “and passing before your house, I took a fancy to come in and stir you up; and here I am.”

M. de Tregars was too much a man of the world, and of the best world, to allow his features to betray the secret of his impressions; and yet, to any one who had known him well, a certain contraction of the eyelids would have revealed a serious annoyance and an intense anxiety.

“How is the baron?” he inquired.

“As sound as an oak,” answered Mme. de Thaller, “notwithstanding all the cares and the troubles, which you can well imagine.  By the way, you know what has happened to us?”

“I read in the papers that the cashier of the Mutual Credit had disappeared.”

“And it is but too true.  That wretch Favoral has gone off with an enormous amount of money.”

“Twelve millions, I heard.”

“Something like it.  A man who had the reputation of a saint too; a puritan.  Trust people’s faces after that!  I never liked him, I confess.  But M. de Thaller had a perfect fancy for him; and, when he had spoken of his Favoral, there was nothing more to say.  Any way, he has cleared out, leaving his family without means.  A very interesting family, it seems, too,—­a wife who is goodness itself, and a charming daughter:  at least, so says Costeclar, who is very much in love with her.”

M. de Tregars’ countenance remained perfectly indifferent, like that of a man who is hearing about persons and things in which he does not take the slightest interest.

Mme. de Thaller noticed this.

“But it isn’t to tell you all this,” she went on, “that I came up.  It is an interested motive brought me.  We have, some of my friends and myself, organized a lottery—­a work of charity, my dear marquis, and quite patriotic—­for the benefit of the Alsatians, I have lots of tickets to dispose of; and I’ve thought of you to help me out.”