“Dear girl,” said I, “I have had a bath got ready for you in the dressing room.” With these words I carried her there in my arms.

“Ah!” said she, sighing, “how comfortable I feel in your arms.”

The bath was just warm enough, I put her into it after having poured in half a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. I then lit the fire and placed the bearskin rug in front of it.

Then I brought out a dressing gown of white cashmere and put before an armchair a pair of small red Turkish slippers with gold embroidery.

After a quarter of an hour, my little bather came out quite shivering and ran to the fire.

“Oh, how nice and warm!” she said, and she sat on the (bearskin at my feet.

She was charming in her cambric peignoir of such transparent texture that the skin could be seen through it. She looked round and said:

“Dear me, how pretty everything is here. Am I to live in this place?”

“Yes, if you like, but we must have somebody's permission.”

“Whose?”

“Your father's.”

“My father's! But will he not be glad when he knows I have a beautiful room and plenty of leisure time for study?”

“To study what?”

“Ah! I had forgotten. I must explain.”

“Do, my dear girl, by all means. You know you must tell me all,” said I, kissing her.

“You remember one day you gave me a ticket for a play?”

“Yes, I do remember.”

“It was for the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, where they played Antony, by M. Dumas.”

“It is an immoral play, not at all fit for young girls to see.”

“I did not think so at all. I was quite taken up with it, and ever since that day, I told my sister and Monsieur Ernest that I wished to appear on the stage.”

“You don't say so?”

“Then Monsieur Ernest and my sister exchanged glances. 'Well,' said my sister, 'if she has any taste at all for it, it would be preferable to the milliner's business.”