"Oh! it will do, but make haste and take it, Captain."
"You may think it strange, but I tremble like a leaf," exclaimed my aunt. "I am afraid of being ill. Do you hear the gentlemen who are dressing in there in the Baron's dressing room? What a noise! Ha! ha! ha! it is charming, a regular gang of strollers. It is exhilarating, do you know, this feverish existence, this life in front of the footlights. But, for the love of Heaven, shut the door, Marie, there is a frightful draught blowing on me. This hourly struggle with the public, the hisses, the applause, would, with my impressionable nature, drive me mad, I am sure."
The old affair of the kiss recurred to me and I said to myself, "Captain, you misunderstood the nature of your relative."
"But that is not the question at all," continued my aunt; "ten o'clock is striking. Ernest, can you apply liquid white? As you are rather experienced—"
"Rather—ha! ha! ha!" said some one behind the screen.
"On the whole," continued the Baroness, "it would be very singular if, in the course of your campaigns, you had never seen liquid white applied."
"Yes, aunt, I have some ideas; yes, I have some ideas about liquid white, and by summoning together all my recollections—"
"Is it true, Captain, that it causes rheumatism?"
"No, not at all; have a couple of logs put on the fire and give me the stuff."
So saying, I turned up my sleeves and poured some of the "Milk of Beauty" into a little onyx bowl that was at hand, then I dipped a little sponge into it, and approached my Aunt Venus with a smile.