continued the letting in of the daylight to gain time to recover her
countenance.

Césarine threw off a cloak, trimmed with fur, and more suitable for a
colder season, but it was a sable with a sprinkling of isolated white
hairs most peculiar and a present from her granduncle. She tottered and
seemed weak, for she had concluded that an affection of illness would
aid her re-entrance. As Hedwig extinguished the lamp, she sank into an
arm-chair. She curiously glanced around and inhaled with a questioning
flutter of the nostrils the lasting odor of cigars and Burgundy, which
the air retained. In this gloomy apartment where she had often sat
alone, sure not to be disturbed, the suggestion of uproarious jollity
hurt her dignity. A singular way to express sorrow and shame at the loss
of a wife by calling in boon companions! This did not seem like Felix
Clemenceau, sober and austere, thus to drown care in champagne.

"Are you alone, girl?" she inquired, looking round with a powerful
impression that the house had unexpected inmates.

"Yes. No one is up yet in the house," responded Hedwig, sharing her
mistress' uneasiness, though from a less indefinite reason; "at all
events, nobody has come down yet. But how did you see that it was I who
came in here before the shades were drawn up?"

"Well, I had made a little peep-hole to see what my husband and his
fellow conspirator were about, in the time before they shut themselves
up in their studio. But, if it is my turn to put questions," she went on
with some offended dignity, "how is it that the back door is bolted as
well as barred and that I have had to sneak in like a malefactor?"