How did it happen that when she was alone once more, Julie was overwhelmed by an inexplicable depression? She sought the cause to no purpose, and vented her spleen on the next visitors who came. Her old friend Madame Desmorges seemed intolerably loquacious; the old Duc de Quesnoy as dull and tiresome as a blacksmith's hammer; her cousin, Madame la Présidente Boursault, prudish and hypocritical; the abbé—there was always an abbe in every private circle in those days—conceited and insipid. And, when Camille came to dress her hair at the usual hour, she pettishly dismissed her, saying:
"What is the use?"
Then she recalled her, and, impelled by a sudden caprice, asked her if the usual period for semi-mourning had not expired within three days.
"Why, yes, madame," said Camille, "it is all over! and madame la comtesse does very wrong not to stop wearing it. If she continues to wear it, it will have a very bad effect."
"How so, Camille?"
"People will say that madame is prolonging her grief for economy, to wear out her gray gowns."
"That is most excellent reasoning, my dear, and I bow to it. Bring me a pink dress at once."
"Pink? No, madame, it is too soon for that. People would say that madame wore mourning reluctantly, and that she changed her mind with her dress. Madame should wear a pretty dress of royal blue with white flowers."
"Very good! But haven't all my dresses gone out of style in the two years I have been in mourning?"
"No, madame, for I have looked after them! I have cut the sleeves over and changed the trimming on the waist. With bows of white satin and a lace head-dress, madame will be as stylish as possible."