“It is enough,” said the advocate, who thought of his friend’s dress.  “It is all that is necessary to buy fine linen, and a well cut dress-coat, that is the essential thing.  Good form consists, above all things, in keeping silent.  With your fine and yielding nature you will become at once a gentleman; better still, you are not a bad-looking fellow; you have an interesting pallor.  I am convinced that you will please.  It is now the beginning of July, and Paris is almost empty, but Madame la Comtesse Fontaine does not go away until the vacations, as she is looking after her little son, who is finishing his studies at the Lycee Bonaparte.  The Countess’s drawing-rooms are open every evening until the end of the month, and one meets there all the chic people who are delayed in Paris, or who stop here between two journeys.  Madame Fontaine is a very amiable and influential old lady; she has a fancy for writers when they are good company.  Do not be silly, but go and order yourself some evening clothes.  By presenting you there, my dear fellow, I assure you, perhaps in fifteen years, a seat in the Academy.  It is agreed!  Get ready for next week.”

Attention!  Amedee Violette is about to make his first appearance in society.

Although his concierge, who aided him to finish his toilette and saw him put on his white cravat, had just said to him, “What a love of a husband you would make!” the poet’s heart beat rapidly when the carriage in which he was seated beside Arthur Papillon stopped before the steps of an old house in the Rue de Bellechasse, where Madame la Comtesse Fontaine lived.

In the vestibule he tried to imitate the advocate’s bearing, which was full of authority; but quickly despaired of knowing how to swell out his starched shirt-front under the severe looks of four tall lackeys in silk stockings.  Amedee was as much embarrassed as if he were presented naked before an examining board.  But they doubtless found him “good for service,” for the door opened into a brightly lighted drawing-room into which he followed Arthur Papillon, like a frail sloop towed in by an imposing three-master, and behold the timid Amedee presented in due form to the mistress of the house!  She was a lady of elephantine proportions, in her sixtieth year, and wore a white camellia stuck in her rosewood-colored hair.  Her face and arms were plastered with enough flour to make a plate of fritters; but for all that, she had a grand air and superb eyes, whose commanding glance was softened by so kindly a smile that Amedee was a trifle reassured.

She had much applauded M. Violette’s beautiful verse, she said, that Jocquelet had recited at her house on the last Thursday of her season; and she had just read with the greatest pleasure his Poems from Nature.  She thanked M. Papillon—­who bows his head and lets his monocle fall—­for having brought M. Violette.  She was charmed to make his acquaintance.