“Dear madame,” said she to Henriette, “excuse me bringing my bag. Just fancy, as I was coming along I went into The Paradise, and as I have again been very extravagant, I did not like to leave it in my cab for fear of being robbed.” But having perceived Mouret, she resumed laughingly: “Ah! sir, I didn't mean to give you an advertisement, for I didn't know you were here. But you really have some extraordinary fine lace just now.” This turned the attention from the fan, which the young man laid on the table. The ladies were all anxious to see what Madame Marty had bought. She was known to be very extravagant, totally unable to resist temptation, strict in her conduct and incapable of yielding to a lover, but weak and cowardly, easily conquered before the least bit of finery. Daughter of a city clerk, she was ruining her husband, a master at the Lycée Bonaparte, who was obliged to double his salary of six thousand francs a year by giving private lessons, in order to meet the constantly increasing household expenses. She did not open her bag, but held it tight on her lap, and commenced to talk about her daughter Valentine, fourteen years old, one of her dearest coquetries, for she dressed her like herself, with all the fashionable novelties of which she submitted to the irresistible seduction. “You know,” she said, “they are making dresses trimmed with a narrow lace for young girls this winter. So when I saw a very pretty Valenciennes----” And she at last decided to open her bag. The ladies were stretching out their necks, when, in the midst of the silence, the door-bell was heard. “It's my husband,” stammered Madame Marty, very confused. “He promised to fetch me on leaving the Lycée Bonaparte.” She quickly shut the bag again, and put it under her chair with an instinctive movement. All the ladies set up a laugh. This made her blush for her precipitation, and she put the bag on her knees again, explaining that men never understood, and that they need not know. “Monsieur de Boves, Monsieur de Vallagnosc,” announced the footman. It was quite a surprise. Madame de Boves herself did not expect her husband. The latter, a fine man, wearing a moustache and an imperial with the military correctness so much liked at the Tuileries, kissed the hand of Madame Desforges, whom he had known as a young girl at her father's. And he made way to allow his companion, a tall, pale fellow, of an aristocratic poverty of blood, to make his bow to the lady of the house. But the conversation had hardly recommenced when two exclamations were heard: “What! Is that you, Paul?” “Why, Octave!”