Trublet, who was in attendance at the Odéon once a month only, was given
to looking in as a friend almost every evening. He was fond of the
actresses, delighted in chatting with them, gave them good advice, and
listened with delicacy to their confidences. He promised Félicie that he
would write her a prescription at once.

"We'll attend to the stomach, my dear child, and you'll see no more cats
under the chairs and tables."

Madame Michon was adjusting the actress's stays. The doctor, suddenly
gloomy, watched her tugging at the laces.

"Don't scowl," said Félicie. "I am never tight-laced. With my waist I
should surely be a fool if I were." And she added, thinking of her best
friend in the theatre, "It's all very well for Fagette, who has no
shoulders and no hips; she's simply straight up and down. Michon, you
can pull a little tighter still. I know you are no lover of waists,
doctor. Nevertheless, I cannot wear swaddling bands like those æsthetic
creatures. Just slip your hand into my stays, and you'll see that I
don't squeeze myself too tight."

He denied that he was inimical to stays; he only condemned them when too
tightly laced. He deplored the fact that women should have no sense of
the harmony of line; that they should associate with smallness of the
waist an idea of grace and beauty, not realizing that their beauty
resided wholly in those modulations through which the body, having
displayed the superb expansion of chest and bosom, tapers off gradually
below the thorax, to glorify itself in the calm and generous width of
the flanks.