s of earrings and crosses and lockets hung
against the crystal like the rich fringes of altar-cloths. The glow of
this gold illumined the street half way across with a sun-like radiance.
And Cadine, as she gazed at it, almost fancied that she was in presence
of something holy, or on the threshold of the Emperor's treasure
chamber. She would for a long time scrutinise all this show of gaudy
jewellery, adapted to the taste of the fish-wives, and carefully read
the large figures on the tickets affixed to each article; and eventually
she would select for herself a pair of earrings--pear-shaped drops of
imitation coral hanging from golden roses.

One morning Claude caught her standing in ecstasy before a
hair-dresser's window in the Rue Saint Honore. She was gazing at the
display of hair with an expression of intense envy. High up in the
window was a streaming cascade of long manes, soft wisps, loose tresses,
frizzy falls, undulating comb-curls, a perfect cataract of silky and
bristling hair, real and artificial, now in coils of a flaming red, now
in thick black crops, now in pale golden locks, and even in snowy white
ones for the coquette of sixty. In cardboard boxes down below were
cleverly arranged fringes, curling side-ringlets, and carefully combed
chignons glossy with pomade. And amidst this framework, in a sort of
shrine beneath the ravelled ends of the hanging locks, there revolved
the bust of a woman, arrayed in a wrapper of cherry-coloured satin
fastened between the breasts with a brass brooch. The figure wore a
lofty bridal coiffure picked out with sprigs of orange blossom, and
smiled with a dollish smile. Its eyes were pale blue; its eyebrows were
very stiff and of exaggerated length; and its waxen cheeks and shoulders
bore evident traces of the heat and smoke of the gas. Cadine waited
till the revolving figure again displayed its smiling face, and as its
profile showed more distinctly and it slowly went round from left to
right she felt perfectly happy. Claude, however, was indignant, and,
shaking Cadine, he asked her what she was doing in front of "that
abomination, that corpse-like hussy picked up at the Morgue!" He flew
into a temper with the "dummy's" cadaverous face and shoulders, that
disfigurement of the beautiful, and remarked that artists painted
nothing but that unreal type of woman nowadays. Cadine, however,
remained unconvinced by his oratory, and considered the lady extremely
beautiful. Then, resist