uests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife's room, and
after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan and
made her see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the contrary
increased it; he showed her in what ways the public funds were employed,
and how the State could increase tenfold the circulation of money by
putting its own, in the proportion of a third, or a quarter, into the
expenditures which would be sustained by private or local interests. He
finally proved to her plainly that his plan was not mere theory, but
a system teeming with methods of execution. Celestine, brightly
enthusiastic, sprang into her husband's arms and sat upon his knee in
the chimney-corner.

"At last I find the husband of my dreams!" she cried. "My ignorance of
your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx's claws. I calumniated
you to him gloriously and in good faith."

The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having
labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great man
in the eyes of his sole public.

"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger,
how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a man of
genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly
beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation
from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and
showed it to him.

"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me face to face
with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency shall be
made for a time to bend the knee to me."

The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the
inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own! Never
courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman bestowed
upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers. Madame
Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where she hired
carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor bourgeois, nor
showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses, had the dress
and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of the eventful
Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning attire. Her hair was
dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,--an ornament costing
three thousand francs, made by Fossin for an Englishwoman who had left
Paris before it was finished. The leaves were of stamped iron-work, as