The Nabob, Volume 2 | Page 3

my purpose to take it up again one of these
days. See, the cloth thrown over it is all damp, so that the clay won't
dry."
"And the accident? Ah! do you know, we hardly believed in that?"

"You were wrong. I never lie. A fall, a terrible crash. But the clay was
fresh, I easily repaired it. Look!"
She removed the cloth with a movement of her arm; the Nabob stood
forth, with his honest face beaming with joy at being reproduced, and
so true, so natural, that Paul uttered a cry of admiration.
"Isn't it good?" she asked ingenuously. "A few touches there and
there--" She had taken the tool and the little sponge and pushed the
stand into what little light there was. "It would be a matter of a few
hours; but it couldn't go to the Exhibition. This is the 22d; everything
had to be sent in long ago."
"Pshaw! With influence--"
She frowned, and the wicked, drooping expression played about her
mouth.
"True. The Duc de Mora's protégée. Oh! you need not excuse yourself.
I know what people say of him, and I care as little for it as that!" She
threw a pellet of clay which flattened out against the wall. "Perhaps,
indeed, by dint of imagining what is not--But let us drop those vile
things," she said, with a toss of her little aristocratic head. "I am
anxious to give you pleasure, Minerva. Your friend shall go to the
Salon this year."
At that moment the odor of caramel, of hot pastry invaded the studio,
where the twilight was falling in fine, decolorized dust; and the Fairy
appeared, with a plate of fritters in her hand, a true fairy, rejuvenated in
gay attire, arrayed in a white tunic which afforded glimpses, beneath
the yellowed lace, of her lovely old woman's arms, the charm that is the
last to die.
"Look at my kuchlen, darling; see if they're not a success this time. Oh!
I beg your pardon; I didn't see that you had company. Ah! It's Monsieur
Paul? Are you pretty well, Monsieur Paul? Pray taste one of my cakes."
And the amiable old lady, to whom her costume seemed to impart

extraordinary animation, came prancing forward, balancing her plate on
the ends of her doll-like fingers.
"Let him alone," said Felicia calmly. "You can offer him some at
dinner."
"At dinner!"
The dancer was so thunderstruck that she nearly overturned her pretty
cakes, which were as light and dainty and excellent as herself.
"Why, yes, I am keeping him to dinner with us. Oh! I beg you," she
added with peculiar earnestness, seeing that the young man made a
gesture of refusal, "I beg you, do not say no. You can do me a real
service by staying to-night. Come, I did not hesitate a moment ago, you
know."
She had taken his hand; really there seemed to be a strange
disproportion between her request and the anxious, imploring tone in
which it was made. Paul still held back. He was not properly dressed.
How could she expect him to stay? A dinner-party at which she was to
have other guests.
"My dinner-party? Why, I will countermand the orders for it. That is
the way I feel. We three will dine alone, you and I and Constance."
"But, Felicia, my child, you can't think of doing such a thing. Upon my
word! What about the--the other who will soon be here?"
"Parbleu! I will write to him to stay at home."
"Wretched girl, it is too late."
"Not at all, It's just striking six. The dinner was to be at half-past seven.
You must send him this at once."
She wrote a note, in haste, on a corner of the table.
"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! what a strange girl!" murmured the dancer, lost

in bewilderment, while Felicia, enchanted, transfigured, joyously
sealed her letter.
"There, my excuses are all made. The sick-headache wasn't invented
for Kadour. Oh! how glad I am!" she added, when the letter had gone;
"what a delightful evening we will have! Kiss me, Constance. This
won't prevent our doing honor to your kuchlen, and we shall enjoy
seeing you in a pretty gown that makes you look younger than I."
Less than that would have induced the dancer to forgive this latest
whim of her dear demon and the crime of lèse-majesté in which she had
made her an accomplice. The idea of treating such a personage so
cavalierly! No one else in the world would have done it, no one but her.
As for Paul de Géry, he made no further attempt at resistance, being
caught once more in the network from which he believed that he had
set himself free by absence, but which, as soon as he crossed