"Yes--if you will sit for Delilah," said Steinbock.

"He will not be there to see, I hope!" replied she. "The group would
be worth more than all his fortune, for Delilah's costume is rather
un-dressy."

Just as Crevel loved to strike an attitude, every woman has a
victorious gesture, a studied movement, which she knows must win
admiration. You may see in a drawing-room how one spends all her time
looking down at her tucker or pulling up the shoulder-piece of her
gown, how another makes play with the brightness of her eyes by
glancing up at the cornice. Madame Marneffe's triumph, however, was
not face to face like that of other women. She turned sharply round to
return to Lisbeth at the tea-table. This ballet-dancer's pirouette,
whisking her skirts, by which she had overthrown Hulot, now fascinated
Steinbock.

"Your vengeance is secure," said Valerie to Lisbeth in a whisper.
"Hortense will cry out all her tears, and curse the day when she
robbed you of Wenceslas."

"Till I am Madame la Marechale I shall not think myself successful,"
replied the cousin; "but they are all beginning to wish for it.--This
morning I went to Victorin's--I forgot to tell you.--The young Hulots
have bought up their father's notes of hand given to Vauvinet, and
to-morrow they will endorse a bill for seventy-two thousand francs at
five per cent, payable in three years, and secured by a mortgage on
their house. So the young people are in straits for three years; they
can raise no more money on that property. Victorin is dreadfully
distressed; he understands his father. And Crevel is capable of