Suzette appeared.
"Shall I open the door, madame?" she asked timidly.
"Certainly, open it."
Suzette opened it. A man carrying a large flat basket on his head came in, saying: "Supper for citizen Barras."
"You hear?" asked Aurélie.
"Yes," replied the incroyable; "but, on the word of Coster de Saint-Victor, he shall not eat it."
"Shall I set the table just the same?" asked Suzette.
"Yes," said the young man, darting from the room; "for if he does not eat it, some one else will."
Aurélie followed him with her eyes as far as the door, then, when it had closed behind him, she cried: "My toilet, Suzette, and make me look more beautiful than you ever did before."
"And for which of the two does madame wish to look beautiful?"