ess'
ante-chamber.

"'"Madame has just this minute rung for me," said the maid; "I don't
think she can see you yet."

"'"I will wait," said I, and sat down in an easy-chair.

"'Venetian shutters were opened, and presently the maid came hurrying
back.

"'"Come in, sir."

"'From the sweet tone of the girl's voice, I knew that the mistress
could not be ready to pay. What a handsome woman it was that I saw in
another moment! She had flung an Indian shawl hastily over her bare
shoulders, covering herself with it completely, while it revealed the
bare outlines of the form beneath. She wore a loose gown trimmed with
snowy ruffles, which told plainly that her laundress' bills amounted
to something like two thousand francs in the course of a year. Her
dark curls escaped from beneath a bright Indian handkerchief, knotted
carelessly about her head after the fashion of Creole women. The bed lay
in disorder that told of broken slumber. A painter would have paid money
to stay a while to see the scene that I saw. Under the luxurious hanging
draperies, the pillow, crushed into the depths of an eider-down quilt,
its lace border standing out in contrast against the background of blue
silk, bore a vague impress that kindled the imagination. A pair of
satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin rug spread by the carved
mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had flung them off in her
weariness after the ball. A crumpled gown hung over a chair, the sleeves
touching the floor; stockings which a breath would have blown away were
twisted about the leg of an easy-chair; while ribbon garters straggled
over a settee. A fan of price, half unfolded, glittered on the
chimney-piece. Drawers stood open; flowers, diamonds, gloves, a bouquet,
a girdle, were littered about. The room was full of vague sweet perfume.
And--beneath all the luxury and disorder, beauty and incongruity, I saw
Misery crouching in wait for her or for her adorer, Misery rearing its
head, for the Countess had begun to feel the edge of those fangs.
Her tired face was an epitome of the room strewn with relics of past
festival. The scattered gewgaws, pitiable this morning, when gathered
together and coherent, had turned heads the night before.

"'What efforts to drink of the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read
in these traces of love stricken by the thunderbolt remorse--in this
visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There
were faint red marks on