"This dress worries me," continued Marguerite, unhooking her bodice; "give me a dressing-gown. Well, and Prudence?"

"She has not come yet, but I will send her to you, madame, the moment she comes."

"There's one, now," Marguerite went on, as she took off her dress and put on a white dressing-gown, "there's one who knows very well how to find me when she is in want of me, and yet she can't do me a service decently. She knows I am waiting for an answer. She knows how anxious I am, and I am sure she is going about on her own account, without giving a thought to me."

"It will do you no good, madame," said Nanine.

"So much the better. Bring some fruit, too, and a pate or a wing of chicken; something or other, at once. I am hungry."

Need I tell you the impression which this scene made upon me, or can you not imagine it?

"You are going to have supper with me," she said to me; "meanwhile, take a book. I am going into my dressing-room for a moment."

She lit the candles of a candelabra, opened a door at the foot of the bed, and disappeared.