“You see!  That rascally Vincent!” said M. de Tregars, just to be saying something.

Mme. Zelie shook her head.

“You know him,” she resumed.  “He is not young; he is not handsome; he is not funny.  I did not fancy him one bit; and, if I had only known where to find shelter for the night, I’d soon have sent him to the old Nick,—­him and his brilliant position.  But, not having enough money to buy myself a penny-loaf, it wasn’t the time to put on any airs.  So I tell him that I accept.  He goes for a cab; we get into it; and he brings me right straight here.”

Positively M. de Tregars required his entire self-control to conceal the intensity of his curiosity.

“Was this house, then, already as it is now?” he interrogated.

“Precisely, except that there were no servants in it, except the chambermaid Amanda, who is M. Favoral’s confidante.  All the others had been dismissed; and it was a hostler from a stable near by who came to take care of the horses.”

“And what then?”

“Then you may imagine what I looked like in the midst of all this magnificence, with my old shoes and my fourpenny skirt.  Something like a grease-spot on a satin dress.  M. Vincent seemed delighted, nevertheless.  He had sent Amanda out to get me some under-clothing and a ready-made wrapper; and, whilst waiting, he took me all through the house, from the cellar to the garret, saying that everything was at my command, and that the next day I would have a battalion of servants to wait on me.”

It was evidently with perfect frankness that she was speaking, and with the pleasure one feels in telling an extraordinary adventure.  But suddenly she stopped short, as if discovering that she was forgetting herself, and going farther than was proper.

And it was only after a moment of reflection that she went on,

“It was like fairyland to me.  I had never tasted the opulence of the great, you see, and I had never had any money except that which I earned.  So, during the first days, I did nothing but run up and down stairs, admiring everything, feeling everything with my own hands, and looking at myself in the glass to make sure that I was not dreaming.  I rang the bell just to make the servants come up; I spent hours trying dresses; then I’d have the horses put to the carriage, and either ride to the bois, or go out shopping.  M. Vincent gave me as much money as I wanted; and it seemed as though I never spent enough.  I shout, I was like a mad woman.”

A cloud appeared upon Mme. Zelie’s countenance, and, changing suddenly her tone and her manner,

“Unfortunately,” she went on, “one gets tired of every thing.  At the end of two weeks I knew the house from top to bottom, and after a month I was sick of the whole thing; so that one night I began dressing.

“‘Where do you want to go?’ Amanda asked me. 
‘Why, to Mabille, to dance a quadrille, or two.’ 
‘Impossible!’
‘Why?’
‘Because M. Vincent does not wish you to go out at night.’ 
‘We’ll see about that!’