ievre. It was a great
square building, and the Muffats had lived in it for a hundred years or
more. On the side of the street its frontage seemed to slumber, so lofty
was it and dark, so sad and convent-like, with its great outer shutters,
which were nearly always closed. And at the back in a little dark garden
some trees had grown up and were straining toward the sunlight with such
long slender branches that their tips were visible above the roof.

This particular Tuesday, toward ten o'clock in the evening, there were
scarcely a dozen people in the drawing room. When she was only expecting
intimate friends the countess opened neither the little drawing room
nor the dining room. One felt more at home on such occasions and chatted
round the fire. The drawing room was very large and very lofty; its four
windows looked out upon the garden, from which, on this rainy evening
of the close of April, issued a sensation of damp despite the great logs
burning on the hearth. The sun never shone down into the room; in the
daytime it was dimly lit up by a faint greenish light, but at night,
when the lamps and the chandelier were burning, it looked merely a
serious old chamber with its massive mahogany First Empire furniture,
its hangings and chair coverings of yellow velvet, stamped with a
large design. Entering it, one was in an atmosphere of cold dignity, of
ancient manners, of a vanished age, the air of which seemed devotional.

Opposite the armchair, however, in which the count's mother had died--a
square armchair of formal design and inhospitable padding, which stood
by the hearthside--the Countess Sabine was seated in a deep and cozy
lounge, the red silk upholsteries of which were soft as eider down. It
was the only piece of modern furniture there, a fanciful item introduced
amid the prevailing severity and clashing with it.

"So we shall have the shah of Persia," the young woman was saying.

They were talking of the crowned heads who were coming to Paris for the
exhibition. Several ladies had formed a circle round the hearth, and Mme
du Joncquoy, whose brother, a diplomat, had just fulfilled a mission in
the East, was giving some details about the court of Nazr-ed-Din.

"Are you out of sorts, my dear?" asked Mme Chantereau, the wife of an
ironmaster, seeing the countess shivering slightly and growing pale as
she did so.

"Oh no, not at all," replied the latter, smiling. "I felt a little cold.
This drawing room takes so l