y pleasure got the better
of fear. Still trembling with emotion, Mme. Derline went and placed
herself before a long looking-glass, an old cheval-glass from Jacob's,
which never till now had reflected other than good middle-class women
married to good lawyers. In that glass she looked at herself, examined
herself, studied herself, long, curiously, and eagerly. Of course she
knew she was pretty, but oh, the power of print! She found herself
absolutely delightful. She was no longer Mme. Derline--she was the most
beautiful woman in Paris! Her feet, her little feet--their bareness no
longer troubled her--left the ground. She raised herself gently towards
the heavens, towards the clouds, and felt herself become a goddess.

But suddenly an anxiety seized her. "Edward! What would Edward say?"
Edward was her husband. There had been but one man's surname in her
life--her husband's. The lawyer was well loved! And almost at the same
moment when she was asking herself what Edward would say, Edward
abruptly opened the door.

He was a little out of breath. He had run up-stairs two at a time. He
was peacefully rummaging among old papers in his study on the
ground-floor when one of his brother-lawyers, with forced
congratulations, however, had made him read the famous article. He had
soon got rid of his brother-lawyer, and he had come, much irritated, to
his room. At first there was simply a torrent of words.

"Why do these journalists meddle? It's an outrage! Your name--look,
there is your name in this paper!"

"Yes, I know, I've seen--"

"Ah, you know, you have seen--and you think it quite natural!"

"But, dear--"

"What times do we live in? It's your fault, too."

"My fault!"

"Yes, your fault!"

"And how?"

"Your dress last night was too low, much too low. Besides, your mother
told you so--"

"Oh, mamma--"

"You needn't say 'Oh, mamma!' Your mother was right. There, read: 'And
whose shoulders--ah, what shoulders!' And it is of your shoulders they
are speaking. And that prince who dares to award you a prize for
beauty!"

The good man had plebeian, Gothical ideas--the ideas of a lawyer of old
times, of a lawyer of the Rue Dragon; the lawyers of the Boulevard
Malesherbes are no longer like that.

Mme. Derline very gently, very quietly, brought the rebel back to
reason. Of course there was charm and eloquence in her speech, but how
much more charm and eloquence in the tenderness of her glance and smile.

Why this