r drift. To-day, my head is freer. Do
me the pleasure to call on me at four o'clock, and we can talk the
matter over."

Werdet waited nearly a week before he paid the requested visit. In
quite another tone, the novelist discussed the proposed scheme,
promised to use his influence on the young publisher's behalf, and
gave him the _Country Doctor_ for the price offered.

Thenceforward, a familiar guest in the dwelling of the Rue Cassini,
Werdet described it in detail, when composing his _Portrait Intime_.
It was part of a two-storied _pavilion_ (as the French call a
moderate-sized house) standing to the left in a courtyard and garden,
with another similar building on the right. From the ground-floor a
flight of steps led up to a glass-covered gallery joining the two
buildings and serving as an antechamber to each. Its sides were hung
in white and blue-striped glazed calico; and a long, blue-upholstered
divan, a blue and brown carpet, and some fine china vases filled with
flowers, adorned it. From the gallery the visitor proceeded into a
pretty drawing-room, fifteen feet square, lighted on the east by a
small casement that looked over the yard of a neighbouring house.
Opposite the drawing-room door was a black marble mantelpiece.

The _salon_ gave access to the bedroom and the dining-room, the latter
being connected with the kitchen underneath by a narrow staircase. A
secret door in the _salon_ opened into the bathroom with its walls of
white stucco, its bath of white marble, and its red, opaque
window-panes diffusing a rose-coloured tint through the air. Two
easy-chairs in red morocco stood near the bath.

The bedroom, having two windows, one towards the south and the
observatory, the other overlooking a garden of flowers and trees, was
very bright and cheery. The furniture, with its shades of white, pink,
and gold, was rich and handsome. A secret door existed also in this
chamber, hidden behind muslin hangings; it led down the same narrow
staircase already mentioned to the kitchen, and thence out into the
yard. Nanon, Balzac's cook, less discreet than Auguste, the
valet-de-chambre, had tales to tell Werdet about certain lady visitors
who arrived by means of this private staircase into the daintily
arranged bedroom.

The study, of oblong shape, about eighteen feet by twelve, had
likewise two windows affording a view only over the yard of the next
house, which, being lofty, made the room dark, even in the sunniest
w