oned by the presence of his father-in-law, a little old fogy
with powdered hair and leering eyes, highly respected nevertheless.

Again Lucien felt disgust rising within him. He thought of the year when
he loved Mme. de Bargeton with an exalted and disinterested love; and
at that thought love, as a poet understands it, spread its white wings
about him; countless memories drew a circle of distant blue horizon
about the great man of Angouleme, and again he fell to dreaming.

Up went the curtain, and there stood Coralie and Florine upon the stage.

"He is thinking about as much of you as of the Grand Turk, my dear
girl," Florine said in an aside while Coralie was finishing her speech.

Lucien could not help laughing. He looked at Coralie. She was one of the
most charming and captivating actresses in Paris, rivaling Mme. Perrin
and Mlle. Fleuriet, and destined likewise to share their fate. Coralie
was a woman of a type that exerts at will a power of fascination over
men. With an oval face of deep ivory tint, a mouth red as a pomegranate,
and a chin subtly delicate in its contour as the edge of a porcelain
cup, Coralie was a Jewess of the sublime type. The jet black eyes behind
their curving lashes seemed to scorch her eyelids; you could guess how
soft they might grow, or how sparks of the heat of the desert might
flash from them in response to a summons from within. The circles of
olive shadow about them were bounded by thick arching lines of eyebrow.
Magnificent mental power, well-nigh amounting to genius, seemed to dwell
in the swarthy forehead beneath the double curve of ebony hair that lay
upon it like a crown, and gleamed in the light like a varnished surface;
but like many another actress, Coralie had little wit in spite of her
aptness at greenroom repartee, and scarcely any education in spite
of her boudoir experience. Her brain was prompted by her senses, her
kindness was the impulsive warm-heartedness of girls of her class. But
who could trouble over Coralie's psychology when his eyes were dazzled
by those smooth, round arms of hers, the spindle-shaped fingers, the
fair white shoulders, and breast celebrated in the Song of Songs,
the flexible curving lines of throat, the graciously moulded outlines
beneath the scarlet silk stockings? And this beauty, worthy of an
Eastern poet, was brought into relief by the conventional Spanish
costume of the stage. Coralie was the delight of the pit; all eyes
dwelt on the outlin