“Don’t bother him.  You can give him some at dinner,” said Felicia quietly.

“At dinner?”

The dancer was so astonished that she almost upset her pretty pastries, which looked as light and airy and delicious as herself.

“Yes, he is staying to dine with us.  Oh!  I beg it of you,” she added, with a particular insistence as she saw he was going to refuse, “I beg you to stay.  Don’t say no.  You will be rendering me a real service by staying to-night.  Come—­I didn’t hesitate a few minutes ago.”

She had taken his hand; and in truth might have been struck by a strange disproportion between her request and the supplicating, anxious tone in which it was made.  Paul still attempted to excuse himself.  He was not dressed.  How could she propose it!—­a dinner at which she would have other guests.

“My dinner?  But I will countermand it!  That is the kind of person I am.  We shall be alone, just the three of us, with Constance.”

“But, Felicia, my child, you can’t really think of such a thing.  Ah, well!  And the—­the other who will be coming directly.

“I am going to write to him to stay at home, parbleu!”

“You unlucky being, it is too late.”

“Not at all.  It is striking six o’clock.  The dinner was for half past seven.  You must have this sent to him quickly.”

She was writing hastily at a corner of the table.

“What a strange girl, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!” murmured the dancer in bewilderment, while Felicia, delighted, transfigured, was joyously sealing her letter.

“There! my excuse is made.  Headaches have not been invented for Kadour.”

Then, the letter having been despatched: 

“Oh, how pleased I am!  What a jolly evening we shall have!  Do kiss me, Constance!  It will not prevent us from doing honour to your kuchen, and we shall have the pleasure of seeing you in a pretty toilette which makes you look younger than I do.”

This was more than was required to cause the dancer to forgive this new caprice of her dear demon, and the crime of lese-majeste in which she had just been involved against her will.  To treat so great a personage so cavalierly!  There was no one like her in the world—­there was no one like her.  As for Paul de Gery, he no longer tried to resist, under the spell once more of that attraction from which he had been able to fancy himself released by absence, but which, from the moment he crossed the threshold of the studio, had put chains on his will, delivered him over, bound and vanquished, to the sentiment which he was quite resolved to combat.