For example, a lyric poet kept an intelligence office, a sculptor was an agent for a wine merchant, and a violinist was in a gas-office.

Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives. These couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave, worn faces the stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of men of genius. Proud of being allowed to accompany their husbands, they smiled upon them with an air of gratified maternal vanity. Then there were the habituιs of the house, the three professors; Labassandre in gala costume, exercising his lungs at intervals by tremendous inspirations; and D’Argenton, the handsome D’Argenton, curled and pomaded, wearing light gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of authority, geniality, and condescension.

Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one, shaking hands with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later and the countess did not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the countess under that roof. Every one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de Moronval went from group to group, saying, with an amiable air, “We will wait a few moments, the countess has not yet arrived!”

The piano was open, the pupils were ranged against the wall; a small green table, on which stood a glass of eau-sucrι and a reading-lamp, was in readiness. M. Moronval, imposing in his white vest; Madame, red and oppressed by all the worry of the evening; and Mβdotu, shivering in the wind from the door,—all are waiting for the countess. Meanwhile, as she came not, D’Argenton consented to recite a poem that all his assistants knew, for they had heard it a dozen times before. Standing in front of the chimney, with his hair thrown back from his wide forehead, the poet declaimed, in a coarse, vulgar voice, what he called his poem.

His friends were not sparing in their praises.

“Magnificent!” said one. “Sublime!” exclaimed another; and the most amazing criticism came from yet another,—“Goethe with a heart?”

Here Ida entered. The poet did not see her, for his eyes were lifted to the ceiling. But she saw him, poor woman; and from that moment her heart was gone. She had never seen him, save in the street wearing his hat: now she beheld him in the mellow light which softened still more his pale face, wearing a dress-coat and evening gloves, reciting a love poem, and, believing in love as he did in God, he produced an extraordinary effect upon her.

He was the hero of her dreams, and corresponded with all the foolish sentimental ideas that lie hidden very often in the hearts of such women.

From that very moment she was his, and he took exclusive possession of her heart. She paid no attention to her little Jack, who made frantic signs to her as he threw her kiss after kiss; nor had she eyes for Moronval, who bowed to the ground; nor for the curious glances that examined her from head to foot, as she stood before them in her black velvet dress and her little white opera hat, trimmed with black roses and ornamented with tulle strings which wrapped about her like a scarf. Years after she recalled the profound impression of that evening, and saw as in a dream her poet as she saw him first in that salon, which seemed to her, seen through the vista of years, immense and superb. The future might heap misery upon her; her past could humiliate and wound her, crush her life, and something more precious than life itself; but the recollection of that brief moment of ecstasy could never be effaced.

“You see, madame,” said Moronval, with his most insinuating smile, “that we made a beginning before your arrival. M. le Vicomte ΐmaury d’Argenton was reciting his magnificent poem.”

“Vicomte!” He was noble, then!

She turned toward him, timid and blushing as a young girl.

“Continue, sir, I beg of you,” she said.

But D’Argenton did not care to do so. The arrival of the countess had injured the effect of his poem—destroyed its point; and such things are not easily pardoned. He bowed, and answered with cold haughtiness that he had finished. Then he turned away without troubling himself more about her. The poor woman felt a strange pang at her heart. She had displeased him, and the very thought was unendurable. It needed all little Jack’s tender caresses and outspoken joy—all his delight at the admiration expressed for her, the attentions of everybody, the idea that she was queen of the fete—to efface the sorrow she felt, and which she showed by a silence of at least five minutes, which silence for a nature like hers was something as extraordinary as restful. The disturbance of her entrance being at last over, every one seated himself to await the next recitation.

Mademoiselle Constant, who had accompanied her mistress, took her seat majestically on the front bench next the pupils. Jack swung himself on the arm of his mother’s chair, between her and M. Moronval, who smoothed the lad’s hair in the most paternal way.

The assemblage was really quite imposing, and Madame Moronval took dignified possession of the little table and the shaded lamp, and proceeded to read an ethnographic composition of her husband’s on the Mongolian races. It was long and tedious—one of those lucubrations that are delivered before certain scientific societies, and succeed in lulling the members to sleep. Madame Moronval took this opportunity of demonstrating the peculiarities of her method, which had the merit—if merit it were—of holding the attention as in a vice, and the words and syllables seemed to reverberate through your own brain.