Monsieur rose early,--anxious, nervous, agitated. Madame, who had been unable to sleep all night, and weary from the errands of the day before and the preparations of all sorts, could not keep still. Five or six times, with wrinkled brow, out of breath, trembling and so weary that, as she said, she felt her belly in her heels, she made a final examination of the house, upset and rearranged bric-à-brac and furniture without reason, and went from one room to another without knowing why and as if she were mad. She trembled lest the cooks might not come, lest the florist might fail them, and lest the guests might not be placed at table in accordance with strict etiquette. Monsieur followed her everywhere, clad only in pink silk drawers, approving here, criticising there. "Now that I think about it again," said he, "what a queer idea that was of yours to order centauries for the table decoration! I assure you that blue becomes black in the light. And then, after all, centauries are nothing but simple corn-flowers. It will look as if we had been to the fields to gather corn-flowers." "Oh! corn-flowers! how provoking you are!" "Yes, indeed, corn-flowers. And the corn-flower, as Kimberly said very truly the other evening at the Rothschilds, is not a society flower. Why not also corn poppies?" "Let me alone," answered Madame. "You drive me crazy with all your stupid observations. A nice time to offer them, indeed!" But Monsieur was obstinate: "All right, all right; you will see, you will see. Provided, my God, that everything goes off tolerably well, without too many accidents, without too many delays. I did not know that to be society people was so difficult, so fatiguing, and so complicated a matter. Perhaps we ought to have remained simple boors." And Madame growled: "Oh! for that matter, I see clearly that nothing will change you. You scarcely do honor to a woman." As they thought me pretty, and very elegant to look at, my masters had allotted to me also an important _role_ in this comedy. First I was to preside over the cloak-room, and then to aid, or rather superintend, the four butlers, four tall lascars, with immense side-whiskers, selected from several employment-bureaus to serve this extraordinary dinner. At first all went well. Nevertheless, there was a moment of alarm. At quarter before nine the Countess Fergus had not yet arrived. Suppose she had changed her mind, and resolved at the last moment not to come? What a humiliation! What a disaster! The Charrigauds were in a state of consternation. Joseph Brigard reassured them. It was the day when the countess had to preside over her admirable "Society for the Collection of Cigar-Stumps for the Army and Navy." The sessions sometimes did not end till very late. "What a charming woman!" said Mme. Charrigaud, ecstatically, as if this eulogy had the magic power to hasten the coming of "this dirty countess," whom, at the bottom of her soul, she cursed.