omnibus traveling, and the rudeness of cabmen.

Then they left the dining-room to take coffee. Duroy, in jest, offered
his arm to the little girl. She gravely thanked him, and rose on tiptoe
in order to rest her hand on it.

On returning to the drawing-room he again experienced the sensation of
entering a greenhouse. In each of the four corners of the room tall
palms unfolded their elegantly shaped leaves, rising to the ceiling, and
there spreading fountain-wise.

On each side of the fireplace were india-rubber plants like round
columns, with their dark green leaves tapering one above the other; and
on the piano two unknown shrubs covered with flowers, those of one all
crimson and those of the other all white, had the appearance of
artificial plants, looking too beautiful to be real.

The air was cool, and laden with a soft, vague perfume that could
scarcely be defined. The young fellow, now more himself, considered the
room more attentively. It was not large; nothing attracted attention
with the exception of the shrubs, no bright color struck one, but one
felt at one's ease in it; one felt soothed and refreshed, and, as it
were, caressed by one's surroundings. The walls were covered with an
old-fashioned stuff of faded violet, spotted with little flowers in
yellow silk about the size of flies. Hangings of grayish-blue cloth,
embroidered here and there with crimson poppies, draped the doorways,
and the chairs of all shapes and sizes, scattered about the room,
lounging chairs, easy chairs, ottomans, and stools, were upholstered in
Louise Seize silk or Utrecht velvet, with a crimson pattern on a
cream-colored ground.

"Do you take coffee, Monsieur Duroy?" and Madame Forestier held out a
cup towards him with that smile which never left her lips.

"Thank you, Madame." He took the cup, and as he bent forward to take a
lump of sugar from the sugar-basin carried by the little girl, Madame
Forestier said to him in a low voice: "Pay attention to Madame Walter."

Then she drew back before he had time to answer a word.

He first drank off his coffee, which he was afraid of dropping onto the
carpet; then, his mind more at ease, he sought for some excuse to
approach the wife of his new governor, and begin a conversation. All at
once he noticed that she was holding an empty cup in her hand, and as
she was at some distance from a table, did not know where to put it. He
darted forward with, "Allow me, Madame?"

"Thank you, s