desire to see where you live and how you live, the furniture you use,
the color of your stuffs, the arrangement of all things about you. I
long to see the pearl in its shell."

He slipped away cleverly after these words, without waiting for an
answer.

Flavie, to whom in all her life love had never taken the language of
romance, sat still, but happy, her heart palpitating, and saying to
herself that it was very difficult to escape such influence. For the
first time Theodose had appeared in a pair of new trousers, with gray
silk stockings and pumps, a waistcoat of black silk, and a cravat of
black satin on the knot of which shone a plain gold pin selected with
taste. He wore also a new coat in the last fashion, and yellow gloves,
relieved by white shirt-cuffs; he was the only man who had manners, or
deportment in that salon, which was now filling up for the evening.

Madame Pron, nee Barniol, arrived with two school-girls, aged
seventeen, confided to her maternal care by families residing in
Martinique. Monsieur Pron, professor of rhetoric in a college presided
over by priests, belonged to the Phellion class; but, instead of
expanding on the surface in phrases and demonstrations, and posing as
an example, he was dry and sententious. Monsieur and Madame Pron, the
flowers of the Phellion salon, received every Monday. Though a
professor, the little man danced. He enjoyed great influence in the
quarter enclosed by the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, the Luxembourg,
and the rue de Sevres. Therefore, as soon as Phellion saw his friend,
he took him by the arm into a corner to inform him of the Thuillier
candidacy. After ten minutes' consultation they both went to find
Thuillier, and the recess of a window, opposite to that where Flavie