magnificent salon of the hotel--all gold mirrors and mouldiness--which
the poor country mouse vaguely accepted as part of the glories of
Paris and success. Madame Dépine would don her ponderous gold brooch,
sole salvage of her bourgeois prosperity; while, if the visitor were
for Madame Valière, that _grande dame_ would hang from her yellow,
shrivelled neck the long gold chain and the old-fashioned watch, whose
hands still seemed to point to regal hours.

Another break in the monotony was the day on which the lottery was
drawn--the day of the pagan god of Luck. What delicious hopes of
wealth flamed in these withered breasts, only to turn grey and cold
when the blank was theirs again, but not the less to soar up again,
with each fresh investment, towards the heaven of the hundred thousand
francs! But if ever Madame Dépine stumbled on Madame Valière buying a
section of a _billet_ at the lottery agent's, she insisted on having
her own slice cut from another number. Fortune itself would be robbed
of its sweet if the "Princess" should share it. Even their common
failure to win a sou did not draw them from their freezing depths
of silence, from which every passing year made it more difficult to
emerge. Some greater conjuncture was needed for that.

It came when Madame la Propriétaire made her _début_ one fine morning
in a grey wig.




III