In one of the finest houses of the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, at
half-past eleven at night, two young women were sitting before the
fireplace of a boudoir hung with blue velvet of that tender shade,
with shimmering reflections, which French industry has lately learned
to fabricate. Over the doors and windows were draped soft folds of
blue cashmere, the tint of the hangings, the work of one of those
upholsterers who have just missed being artists. A silver lamp studded
with turquoise, and suspended by chains of beautiful workmanship, hung
from the centre of the ceiling. The same system of decoration was
followed in the smallest details, and even to the ceiling of fluted
blue silk, with long bands of white cashmere falling at equal
distances on the hangings, where they were caught back by ropes of
pearl. A warm Belgian carpet, thick as turf, of a gray ground with
blue posies, covered the floor. The furniture, of carved ebony, after
a fine model of the old school, gave substance and richness to the
rather too decorative quality, as a painter might call it, of the rest
of the room. On either side of a large window, two etageres displayed
a hundred precious trifles, flowers of mechanical art brought into
bloom by the fire of thought. On a chimney-piece of slate-blue marble
were figures in old Dresden, shepherds in bridal garb, with delicate
bouquets in their hands, German fantasticalities surrounding a
platinum clock, inlaid with arabesques. Above it sparkled the
brilliant facets of a Venice mirror framed in ebony, with figures
carved in relief, evidently obtained from some former royal residence.
Two jardinieres were filled with the exotic product of a hot-house,
pale, but divine flowers, the treasures of botany.

In this cold, orderly boudoir, where all things were in place as if
for sale, no sign existed of the gay and capricious disorder of a
happy home. At the present moment, the two young women were weeping.