The former great poet of the faubourg Saint-Germain, twice a cabinet minister, and now for the fourth time an orator in the Chamber, and aspiring to another ministry, laid a warning finger significantly on his lip.  That gesture explained everything.

“I am happy to see you,” said Beatrix, demurely.  “I said to myself when I recognized you just now, before you saw me, that you at least would not disown me.  Ah! my Calyste,” she added in a whisper, “why did you marry?—­and with such a little fool!”

As soon as a woman whispers in the ear of a new-comer and makes him sit beside her, men of the world find an immediate excuse for leaving the pair alone together.

“Come, Nathan,” said Canalis, “Madame la marquise will, I am sure, allow me to go and say a word to d’Arthez, whom I see over there with the Princesse de Cadignan; it relates to some business in the Chamber to-morrow.”

This well-bred departure gave Calyste time to recover from the shock he had just received; but he nearly lost both his strength and his senses once more, as he inhaled the perfume, to him entrancing though venomous, of the poem composed by Beatrix.  Madame de Rochefide, now become bony and gaunt, her complexion faded and almost discolored, her eyes hollow with deep circles, had that evening brightened those premature ruins by the cleverest contrivances of the article Paris.  She had taken it into her head, like other deserted women, to assume a virgin air, and recall by clouds of white material the maidens of Ossian, so poetically painted by Girodet.  Her fair hair draped her elongated face with a mass of curls, among which rippled the rays of the foot-lights attracted by the shining of a perfumed oil.  Her white brow sparkled.  She had applied an imperceptible tinge of rouge to her cheeks, upon the faded whiteness of a skin revived by bran and water.  A scarf so delicate in texture that it made one doubt if human fingers could have fabricated such gossamer, was wound about her throat to diminish its length, and partly conceal it; leaving imperfectly visible the treasures of the bust which were cleverly enclosed in a corset.  Her figure was indeed a masterpiece of composition.

As for her pose, one word will suffice—­it was worthy of the pains she had taken to arrange it.  Her arms, now thin and hard, were scarcely visible within the puffings of her very large sleeves.  She presented that mixture of false glitter and brilliant fabrics, of silken gauze and craped hair, of vivacity, calmness, and motion which goes by the term of the Je ne sais quoi.  Everybody knows in what that consists, namely:  great cleverness, some taste, and a certain composure of manner.  Beatrix might now be called a decorative scenic effect, changed at will, and wonderfully manipulated.  The presentation of this fairy effect, to which is added clever dialogue, turns the heads of men who are endowed by nature with frankness, until they become possessed, through the