of bright-coloured flannelling, flowered print, or scarlet poplin.  Sometimes even from amongst the pieces draped and set off to advantage by the window-dressers she would choose some soft sky-blue or apple-green silk, and dream of wearing it with pink ribbons.  In the evenings she would dazzle herself with the displays in the windows of the big jewellers in the Rue Montmartre.  That terrible street deafened her with its ceaseless flow of vehicles, and the streaming crowd never ceased to jostle her; still she did not stir, but remained feasting her eyes on the blazing splendour set out in the light of the reflecting lamps which hung outside the windows.  On one side all was white with the bright glitter of silver:  watches in rows, chains hanging, spoons and forks laid crossways, cups, snuff-boxes, napkin-rings, and combs arranged on shelves.  The silver thimbles, dotting a porcelain stand covered with a glass shade, had an especial attraction for her.  Then on the other side the windows glistened with the tawny glow of gold.  A cascade of long pendant chains descended from above, rippling with ruddy gleams; small ladies’ watches, with the backs of their cases displayed, sparkled like fallen stars; wedding rings clustered round slender rods; bracelets, broaches, and other costly ornaments glittered on the black velvet linings of their cases; jewelled rings set their stands aglow with blue, green, yellow, and violet flamelets; while on every tier of the shelves superposed rows of earrings and crosses and lockets hung against the crystal like the rich fringes of altar-cloths.  The glow of this gold illumined the street half way across with a sun-like radiance.  And Cadine, as she gazed at it, almost fancied that she was in presence of something holy, or on the threshold of the Emperor’s treasure chamber.  She would for a long time scrutinise all this show of gaudy jewellery, adapted to the taste of the fish-wives, and carefully read the large figures on the tickets affixed to each article; and eventually she would select for herself a pair of earrings—­pear-shaped drops of imitation coral hanging from golden roses.

One morning Claude caught her standing in ecstasy before a hair-dresser’s window in the Rue Saint Honore.  She was gazing at the display of hair with an expression of intense envy.  High up in the window was a streaming cascade of long manes, soft wisps, loose tresses, frizzy falls, undulating comb-curls, a perfect cataract of silky and bristling hair, real and artificial, now in coils of a flaming red, now in thick black crops, now in pale golden locks, and even in snowy white ones for the coquette of sixty.  In cardboard boxes down below were cleverly arranged fringes, curling side-ringlets, and carefully combed chignons glossy with pomade.  And amidst this framework, in a sort of shrine beneath the ravelled ends of the hanging locks, there revolved the bust of a woman, arrayed in a wrapper of cherry-coloured satin fastened between the breasts with a brass brooch.