The furniture of the somewhat crowded drawing-room presented that composite appearance which is characteristic of our time, together with the peculiarity that everything in it seemed to be almost too new. At a first glance, certain slight indications would have seemed to show that its Parisian aspect had been voluntarily aimed at. Objects were contrasted here and there; there were, for instance, little old-fashioned silver spoons; on the walls were two excellent copies of small religious pictures, to which memories of childhood were certainly linked, and which could have come only from an old country house. The photographs, also, witnessed, by the dress and demeanour of the relatives or friends represented, to altogether provincial relationships. The feeling of contrast would have become still more perceptible to one visiting the other rooms and finding everywhere evident tokens that the persons dwelling in them had lived but a very short time at Paris. This small-sized drawing-room belonged to a small-sized house situated at No. 3½, Rue de La Rochefoucauld. The lower part of this street, which descends in a very steep slope to the Rue Saint-Lazare, comprises several private houses of very varied build, and a few retired dwellings surrounded by gardens. The house containing the little drawing-room was built for an actress by a celebrated financier under the Empire, at a period when the Rue de la Tour des Dames harboured many princes and princesses of the footlights. Too small to suit a wealthy family, too inconvenient, owing to certain deficiencies in accommodation, for tenants accustomed to the completeness of English comfort, it must have proved quite seductive to persons accustomed to a semi-country life by its attraction as a "home," as well as by the quiet pervading the end of the street, which is rarely affronted by vehicles on account of the difficulty of the ascent. During this November evening, although the windows of the little drawing-room looked upon the courtyard, and the latter opened upon the street, only a dim and distant murmuring penetrated from without, broken by occasional gusts of the north wind. Judging by the whistling of this north wind the night must have been a cold one. So, at least, opined a fairly young man, one of the three persons assembled in the drawing-room, as he rose from his chair, set down his empty cup on the tea-tray with a sigh, and looked at the time-piece. "Ten o'clock. Must I really go to see the Malhoures this evening? What a disaster it is to have a sensible wife who thinks about your future! Never get married, Armand. Listen to that wind! I was so comfortable here with you. Look here, Helen," he went on, leaning on the back of the easy-chair in which his wife was seated, "what will happen if I do not put in an appearance this evening?"