like a friend, like a familiar face which the sun
lighted up at times as if it were smiling at her. As she was unable
to get rid of them, Sidonie had adopted the course of ceasing to visit
them.

In truth, her life would have been lonely and depressing enough, had
it not been for the distractions which Claire Fromont procured for her.
Each time added fuel to her wrath. She would say to herself:

"Must everything come to me through her?"

And when, just at dinner-time, a box at the theatre or an invitation
for the evening was sent to her from the floor below, while she was
dressing, overjoyed at the opportunity to exhibit herself, she thought
of nothing but crushing her rival. But such opportunities became more
rare as Claire's time was more and more engrossed by her child. When
Grandfather Gardinois came to Paris, however, he never failed to bring
the two families together. The old peasant's gayety, for its freer
expansion, needed little Sidonie, who did not take alarm at his
jests. He would take them all four to dine at Philippe's, his favorite
restaurant, where he knew all the patrons, the waiters and the steward,
would spend a lot of money, and then take them to a reserved box at the
Opera-Comique or the Palais-Royal.

At the theatre he laughed uproariously, talked familiarly with the
box-openers, as he did with the waiters at Philippe's, loudly demanded
footstools for the ladies, and when the performance was over insisted
on having the topcoats and fur wraps of his party first of all, as if he
were the only three-million parvenu in the audience.

For these somewhat vulgar entertainments, from which her husband usually
excused himself, Claire, with her usual tact, dressed very plainly and
attracted no attention. Sidonie, on the contrary, in all her finery, in
full view of the boxes, laughed with all her heart at the grandfather's
anecdotes, happy to have descended from the second or third gallery, her
usual place in the old days, to that lovely proscenium box, adorned with
mirrors, with a velvet rail that seemed made expressly for her light
gloves, her ivory opera-glass, and her spangled fan. The tawdry glitter
of the theatre, the red and gold of the hangings, were genuine splendor
to her. She bloomed among them like a pretty paper flower in a filigree
jardiniere.

One evening, at the performance of a successful play at the
Palais-Royal, among all the noted women who were present, painted
celebrities wearing m