"Oh no, mother."
They spoke of the theatre, and the conversation languished.
During a moment's silence, Madame Nanteuil asked Monsieur de Ligny if he were still collecting old fashion-prints.
Félicie and Robert looked at her without understanding. They had told her not long before some fiction about engraved fashion-plates, to explain the meetings which they had not been able to conceal. But they had quite forgotten the fact. Since then, a piece of the moon, as an old author has said, had fallen into their love; Madame Nanteuil alone, in her profound respect for fiction, remembered it.
"My daughter told me you had a great number of those old engravings and that she used to find ideas for her costumes in them."
"Quite so, madame, quite so."
"Come here, Monsieur de Ligny," said Félicie. "I want to show you a design for a costume for the part of Cécile de Rochemaure."
And she carried him off to her room.
It was a small room hung with flowered paper; the furniture consisted of a wardrobe with a mirror, a couple of chairs upholstered in horsehairs and an iron bedstead; with a white counterpane; above it was a bowl for holy water, and a sprig of boxwood.