"You might make me a lace table cloth. We'll talk about it some other time, not this evening; besides, I can't be too extravagant." The dressmaker took her leave a few moments later and made her way with care in the semi-obscurity down the three flights of stairs. Marie Pascal was a young girl in the early twenties, fair-haired, blue-eyed and with a graceful figure. Modishly but neatly dressed, she had a reputation in the neighborhood as a model of discretion and virtue. She worked ceaselessly and being clever with her fingers, she had succeeded in building up so good a trade in the rich and elegant Monceau quarter, that in the busy season she was obliged to hire one or two workwomen to help her. As she was crossing the court to go to her own room, a voice called her from the porter's lodge. "Marie Pascal, look here a moment." A fat woman dressed in her best opened the door of her room which was lit by one flaring gas jet. Marie Pascal, in spite of her natural kindliness, could scarcely repress a smile. Madame Ceiron, the concierge, or, as she was popularly called, "Mother Citron," certainly presented a fantastic appearance. She was large, shapeless, common, and good-natured. Behind her glasses, her eyes snapped with perpetual sharp humor. She had a mass of gray hair that curled round her wrinkled face, which, with a last remnant of coquetry, she made up outrageously. Her hands and feet were enormous, disproportionate to her figure, although she was well above middle height. She invariably wore mittens while doing the housework. Mother Citron, however, did very little work; she left that to a subordinate who, for a modest wage, attended to her business and left her free to go out morning, noon and night. She now questioned Marie Pascal with considerable curiosity, and the young girl explained her late errand to deliver the gown to Susy d'Orsel. "Come in and have a cup of coffee, Mam'zelle Pascal," urged the old woman, as she set out two cups and filled them from a coffee pot on the stove. Marie Pascal at first refused, but Mother Citron was so insistent that she ended by accepting the invitation. Besides, she felt very grateful to Madame Ceiron for having recommended her to the proprietor of the house, the Marquis de Serac, an old bachelor who lived on the first floor. The Marquis had used his good offices to obtain for her an order for laces from the King of Hesse-Weimar. Mother Citron showed a kindly interest in this enterprise. "Well, did you see the King?" Marie Pascal hesitated: "I saw him and I didn't see him." "Tell me all about it, my dear. Is the lover of our lady upstairs a good-looking man?"