“Look!  One would think that Zibeline took that allusion for herself,” said Madame Desvanneaux, whom nothing escaped.

On reentering the greenroom, after two well-deserved recalls, Eugenie Gontier was soon surrounded by a throng of admirers who had come to congratulate her upon her success.

“Were you pleased, Henri?” she said in a low tone to the General.

“Enthusiastically!” he replied.

“Ah, then I can die happy!” she said, laughingly.

As she traversed the ranks of her admirers to go to change her costume for the last act, she found herself face to face with Zibeline, who, having quickly recovered from her emotion, was advancing on the arm of the Chevalier de Sainte-Foy.

“My dear child,” said the old nobleman to the actress, “I bring to you Mademoiselle de Vermont, who wishes to say to you herself—­”

“That Mademoiselle must be very tired of listening to our praises,” interrupted Zibeline.  “But if the tribute of a foreigner can prove to her that her prestige is universal, I beg that she will accept these flowers which I dared not throw to her from my box.”

“Really, Mademoiselle, you embarrass me!” Eugenie replied, somewhat surprised.

“Oh, you need not fear to take them—­they are not poisoned!” added Zibeline, smiling.

And, after a gracious inclination of her head, to which the actress responded with a deep courtesy, Zibeline took again the arm of her escort in order to seek her carriage, without waiting for the end of the play.

Three-quarters of an hour later, as, the audience was leaving the theatre, M. Desvanneaux recounted to whoever chose to listen that Mademoiselle de Vermont had passed the whole of the last ‘entr’acte’ in the greenroom corridor, in a friendly chat with Eugenie Gontier.

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ZIBELINE

By Philippe de Massa

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INDUSTRIAL ORPHAN ASYLUM

When the prefectoral axe of the Baron Haussmann hewed its way through the Faubourg St. Germain in order to create the boulevard to which this aristocratic centre has given its flame, the appropriation of private property for public purposes caused to disappear numerous ancient dwellings bearing armorial devices, torn down in the interest of the public good, to the equalizing level of a line of tramways.  In the midst of this sacrilegious upheaval, the Hotel de Montgeron, one of the largest in the Rue St. Dominique, had the good fortune to be hardly touched by the surveyor’s line; in exchange for a few yards sliced obliquely from the garden, it received a generous addition of air and light on that side of the mansion which formerly had been shut in.