“Show me the salon windows,” she would say to him, “and Claire’s room.”

Risler, delighted by this extraordinary interest in his beloved factory, would explain to the child from their lofty position the arrangement of the buildings, point out the print-shop, the gilding-shop, the designing-room where he worked, the engine-room, above which towered that enormous chimney blackening all the neighboring walls with its corrosive smoke, and which never suspected that a young life, concealed beneath a neighboring roof, mingled its inmost thoughts with its loud, indefatigable panting.

At last one day Sidonie entered that paradise of which she had heretofore caught only a glimpse.

Madame Fromont, to whom Risler often spoke of her little neighbor’s beauty and intelligence, asked him to bring her to the children’s ball she intended to give at Christmas.  At first Monsieur Chebe replied by a curt refusal.  Even in those days, the Fromonts, whose name was always on Rider’s lips, irritated and humiliated him by their wealth.  Moreover, it was to be a fancy ball, and M. Chebe—­who did not sell wallpapers, not he!—­could not afford to dress his daughter as a circus-dancer.  But Risler insisted, declared that he would get everything himself, and at once set about designing a costume.

It was a memorable evening.

In Madame Chebe’s bedroom, littered with pieces of cloth and pins and small toilet articles, Desiree Delobelle superintended Sidonie’s toilet.  The child, appearing taller because of her short skirt of red flannel with black stripes, stood before the mirror, erect and motionless, in the glittering splendor of her costume.  She was charming.  The waist, with bands of velvet laced over the white stomacher, the lovely, long tresses of chestnut hair escaping from a hat of plaited straw, all the trivial details of her Savoyard’s costume were heightened by the intelligent features of the child, who was quite at her ease in the brilliant colors of that theatrical garb.

The whole assembled neighborhood uttered cries of admiration.  While some one went in search of Delobelle, the lame girl arranged the folds of the skirt, the bows on the shoes, and cast a final glance over her work, without laying aside her needle; she, too, was excited, poor child! by the intoxication of that festivity to which she was not invited.  The great man arrived.  He made Sidonie rehearse two or three stately curtseys which he had taught her, the proper way to walk, to stand, to smile with her mouth slightly open, and the exact position of the little finger.  It was truly amusing to see the precision with which the child went through the drill.

“She has dramatic blood in her veins!” exclaimed the old actor enthusiastically, unable to understand why that stupid Frantz was strongly inclined to weep.