After the business interview at the Conservatoire, where the name of Mdlle. Duprez was a power, the kindly little Frenchwoman ordered the coachman to drive by the Boulevard and the Parc Monceau to the Bois de Boulogne. She steeped her young friend in the glory and beauty of Paris, hoping to prevent the possibility of much thought amidst so new and bright a world. And then she proposed that they should get seats at the Comédie Française, where a new play of Sardou's was being acted.
Hilda roused herself from the lethargy in which she had looked at the splendours of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and the brightness of the Bois, to protest against the idea of the theatre.
"I am not going to pretend to amuse myself when I am miserable," she said. "I mean to forget Bothwell by and by, or to think of him only as a dear friend whose happiness makes me happy; but I cannot pretend to have forgotten him to-day. I won't go to the theatre and make believe to be amused. I should feel as if I were seeking pleasures abroad when there was some one that I loved lying dead at home. But that need not prevent your seeing Sardou's play, dear Mademoiselle. I can stay quietly at the hotel, and read myself to sleep."
"My child, I don't care a straw for Sardou's play, except as a means of making you forget your troubles. We will go and take a quiet cup of tea with Mdme. Tillet, so that you may get reconciled to your new surroundings. That will be much better; and then you must go to bed early and get a good night's rest."
They dined at the hotel, in the odour of sanctity, as it were, for a bishop and a curé were dining at the table next them, and dining uncommonly well with a nice appreciation of the plat du jour, and of some excellent chambertin which appeared towards the close of the entertainment.
"I hope you won't be horrified when you hear that the Tillets live over a shop," said Mdlle. Duprez, as she and Hilda were walking down the Rue de Grenelle on their way to the Rue du Bac. "It is only a quiet little glover's shop, but I thought the idea might shock you."
"I am not at all shocked. I should not be, even, if Mdme. Tillet kept the shop," answered Hilda, smiling her faint sweet smile, which told of a gentle nature and a heart in pain.
They came to the glover's shop presently, a very obscure little shop in a street where there are many big shops; shops of renown, even, like the Petit Saint-Thomas, and the Bon Marché, the Whiteley of Paris. There was a private door beside the glover's. A narrow passage and a dark staircase conducted to the abode of the Tillets, which was on the second floor, and the approach to which echoed with sonorous laughter and manly voices, with an admixture of girlish treble.
"The children are all at home," said Mdlle. Duprez, who had been accustomed to hear Mdme. Tillet talk of her bearded and well-grown brood as "mes enfants."
Hilda found herself presently in the bosom of the family, being embraced by Mdme. Tillet, who was a stout, comfortable-looking matron in a gray cashmere gown and black mittens. The family sitting-room was a spacious apartment, with piano, book-cases, easels, drawing-tables, work-tables, all the means of various kinds of study and art; and it seemed overflowing with human life. Half-buried in an armchair by the hearth reclined the father; the three sons, Adolphe, Victor, and Frédéric, were seated at different tables, each with his particular lamp; and the two daughters sat on each side of a large work-basket, stitching industriously at a new gown which they were making together.