a thrill of
soft emotion when he entered it, as though he saw it for the first time.
The proud gaiety of a triumphant woman glowed in the splendid colors of
the tulips which rose from the long throats of Chinese vases judiciously
placed about the room, and sparkled in the profusion of lights whose
effect can only be compared to a joyous burst of martial music. The
gleam of the wax candles cast a mellow sheen on the coverings of
pearl-gray silk, whose monotony was relieved by touches of gold, soberly
distributed here and there on a few ornaments, and by the varied colors
of the tulips, which were like sheaves of precious stones. The secret
of this choice arrangement--it was he, ever he! Josephine could not tell
him in words more eloquent that he was now and ever the mainspring of
her joys and woes.

The aspect of that chamber put the soul deliciously at ease, cast out
sad thoughts, and left a sense of pure and equable happiness. The
silken coverings, brought from China, gave forth a soothing perfume
that penetrated the system without fatiguing it. The curtains, carefully
drawn, betrayed a desire for solitude, a jealous intention of guarding
the sound of every word, of hiding every look of the reconquered
husband. Madame Claes, wearing a dressing-robe of muslin, which was
trimmed by a long pelerine with falls of lace that came about her
throat, and adorned with her beautiful black hair, which was exquisitely
glossy and fell on either side of her forehead like a raven's wing, went
to draw the tapestry portiere that hung before the door and allowed no
sound to penetrate the chamber from without.

CHAPTER VI

At the doorway Josephine turned, and threw to her husband, who was
sitting near the chimney, one of those gay smiles with which a sensitive
woman whose soul comes at moments into her face, rendering it beautiful,
gives expression to irresistible hopes. Woman's greatest charm lies
in her constant appeal to the generosity of man by the admission of a
weakness which stirs his pride and wakens him to the nobler sentiments.
Is not such an avowal of weakness full of magical seduction? When the
rings of the portiere had slipped with a muffled sound along the wooden
rod, she turned towards Claes, and made as though she would hide her
physical defects by resting her hand upon a chair and drawing herself
gracefully forward. It was calling him to help her. Balthazar, sunk for
a moment in contemplation of the olive-tinted