been on the watch, for they hastened
forward. At thirty-two Valerie was still young and charming. She was
a pleasant-looking brunette, with a round smiling face in a setting of
superb hair. She had a full, round bust, and admirable shoulders, of
which her husband felt quite proud whenever she showed herself in a
low-necked dress. Reine, at this time twelve years old, was the very
portrait of her mother, showing much the same smiling, if rather longer,
face under similar black tresses.

"Ah! it is very kind of you to accept our invitation," said Valerie
gayly as she pressed both Mathieu's hands. "What a pity that Madame
Froment could not come with you! Reine, why don't you relieve the
gentleman of his hat?"

Then she immediately continued: "We have a nice light anteroom, you see.
Would you like to glance over our flat while the eggs are being boiled?
That will always be one thing done, and you will then at least know
where you are lunching."

All this was said in such an agreeable way, and Morange on his side
smiled so good-naturedly, that Mathieu willingly lent himself to this
innocent display of vanity. First came the parlor, the corner room,
the walls of which were covered with pearl-gray paper with a design of
golden flowers, while the furniture consisted of some of those white
lacquered Louis XVI. pieces which makers turn out by the gross. The
rosewood piano showed like a big black blot amidst all the rest. Then,
overlooking the Boulevard de Grenelle, came Reine's bedroom, pale
blue, with furniture of polished pine. Her parents' room, a very small
apartment, was at the other end of the flat, separated from the
parlor by the dining-room. The hangings adorning it were yellow; and a
bedstead, a washstand, and a wardrobe, all of thuya, had been crowded
into it. Finally the classic "old carved oak" triumphed in the
dining-room, where a heavily gilded hanging lamp flashed like fire above
the table, dazzling in its whiteness.

"Why, it's delightful," Mathieu, repeated, by way of politeness; "why,
it's a real gem of a place."

In their excitement, father, mother, and daughter never ceased leading
him hither and thither, explaining matters to him and making him feel
the things. He was most struck, by the circumstance that the place
recalled something he had seen before; he seemed to be familiar with the
arrangement of the drawing-room, and with the way in which the
nicknacks in the bedchamber were set out. And all at