Auguste left the hovel; the child bade him good-bye and called after him:

“Come and play with me again, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Auguste, “I promise.”

IV
SOME PORTRAITS AFTER NATURE

Since eleven o’clock Dalville had been expected at Monsieur Destival’s. Madame, a brunette of thirty, with a bright eye and a most expressive glance, who was an adept in the art of making the most of a shapely figure and seductive contours by an effective costume,—madame had finished her toilet. In the country it was, of course, very simple; but there are some négligé costumes which require much preparation. However, as madame was pretty and still young, she had spent only a half hour in donning a filmy white dress, confined at the waist by an orange sash; in arranging her curls becomingly and adorning them with a bow of the same color as her sash. Nor had she asked Julie more than six times if the yellow was becoming to her.

Julie replied that madame was fascinating, that yellow was always becoming to brunettes, and, in fact, that madame need not be afraid to wear any color. Madame smiled slightly at Julie, who was only twenty-four, but was extremely ugly, which is almost always considered a valuable quality in a lady’s maid.

Monsieur Destival was ten years older than his wife; he was tall and thin; his face was not handsome, but it had character; unfortunately its expression was not of the sort that denotes an amiable person, whose wit causes one to forget his ugliness; it denoted self-sufficiency, conceit, and a constant tendency to be cunning. His rustic cap, set well forward on his head, seemed to put a seal upon all the rest.

Monsieur Destival was formerly a government employé; with his wife’s dowry he had bought the office of official auctioneer, which he had afterward sold at a profit. Although he never talked of politics for fear of compromising himself, and did not himself know to what party he belonged, he had had the shrewdness to set up an office as a business agent, had obtained a numerous clientage and had succeeded in tripling his capital. To be sure, he gave receptions, balls and small punches, and madame, whose eyes were full of fire and whose manners were charming, did the honors of her salon with infinite grace.

The country house, where they passed much of the time in summer, was large enough to enable them to entertain extensively, and to provide rooms for seven or eight friends. As monsieur never allowed more than one day to pass without going to Paris to look after his business, and as he sometimes passed the night there, madame—who was very timid, although she had the look of a strong-minded woman—liked to keep one of monsieur’s male friends in the house.

A young man with twenty thousand francs a year could not fail to be hospitably received at Monsieur Destival’s; and so, although it was only three months since Auguste had made his acquaintance, he was already on the footing of an intimate friend. Monsieur constantly urged him to call, whether at Paris or in the country, and madame was very fond of singing and playing with him.