Lucien was unaccustomed to orgies of this kind. His head was very tolerably clear as he came down the staircase, but the fresh air was too much for him; he was horribly drunk. When they reached the handsome house in the Rue de Vendôme, where the actress lived, Coralie and her waiting-woman were obliged to assist the poet to climb to the first floor. Lucien was ignominiously sick, and very nearly fainted on the staircase. “Quick, Bérénice, some tea! Make some tea,” cried Coralie. “It is nothing; it is the air,” Lucien got out, “and I have never taken so much before in my life.” “Poor boy! He is as innocent as a lamb,” said Bérénice, a stalwart Norman peasant woman as ugly as Coralie was pretty. Lucien, half unconscious, was laid at last in bed. Coralie, with Bérénice’s assistance, undressed the poet with all a mother’s tender care. “It is nothing,” he murmured again and again. “It is the air. Thank you, mamma.” “How charmingly he says ‘mamma,’” cried Coralie, putting a kiss on his hair. “What happiness to love such an angel, mademoiselle! Where did you pick him up? I did not think a man could be as beautiful as you are,” said Bérénice, when Lucien lay in bed. He was very drowsy; he knew nothing and saw nothing; Coralie made him swallow several cups of tea, and left him to sleep. “Did the porter see us? Was there anyone else about?” she asked. “No; I was sitting up for you.” “Does Victoire know anything?” “Rather not!” returned Bérénice. Ten hours later Lucien awoke to meet Coralie’s eyes. She had watched by him as he slept; he knew it, poet that he was. It was almost noon, but she still wore the delicate dress, abominably stained, which she meant to lay up as a relic. Lucien understood all the self-sacrifice and delicacy of love, fain of its reward. He looked into Coralie’s eyes. In a moment she had flung off her clothing and slipped like a serpent to Lucien’s side. At five o’clock in the afternoon Lucien was still sleeping, cradled in this voluptuous paradise. He had caught glimpses of Coralie’s chamber, an exquisite creation of luxury, a world of rose-color and white. He had admired Florine’s apartments, but this surpassed them in its dainty refinement. Coralie had already risen; for if she was to play her part as the Andalusian, she must be at the theatre by seven o’clock. Yet she had returned to gaze at the unconscious poet, lulled to sleep in bliss; she could not drink too deeply of this love that rose to rapture, drawing close the bond between the heart and the senses, to steep both in ecstasy. For in that apotheosis of human passion, which of those that were twain on earth that they might know bliss to the full creates one soul to rise to love in heaven, lay Coralie’s justification. Who, moreover, would not have found excuse in Lucien’s more than human beauty? To the actress knéeling by the bedside, happy in love within her, it seemed that she had received love’s consecration. Bérénice broke in upon Coralie’s rapture.