"Too tight, perhaps? or shabby, eh?" He remembered her sweeping remarks. "Oh, dear, no--far worse than that! One evening she took them off and he found ... that she actually _bit her nails_!" "And that finished it?" Fantine nodded as the waiter handed McTaggart's bill. "But, of course! Gustave wept with chagrin. But I told him it was his own fault. He should have laid his volatile heart at the feet of a Parisienne." "The love then was only skin-deep?" Obedient to her little sign, he handed his guest her furs, watching her with amused blue eyes as she powdered her face in the glass. "Not ever, that, mon cher Pierrot"--she flashed him a mocking glance, hard and brilliant, holding a hint of the resentment in her heart. Then she rose to her feet with a supple movement, gathering her furs about her. "He loved her," she volunteered--"as far as--jusqu'aux bouts des ongles!" CHAPTER IX Ebenezer Cadell was one of those men--daily becoming more rare--who, after a life of strenuous work, can face, at breakfast, a mutton chop. In this nervous age the fact in itself stands for an attribute of success. For next to money a good digestion will thrust an ambitious man far. He did not even take his chop in obedience to his doctor's wishes, but out of a healthy appetite for that peculiar delicacy. He liked it as a second course, after eggs or fish or bacon, rather underdone and large, remembering lean years of porridge. Breakfast over, he filled his pipe before the fire, where his boots were warming, and steeped his soul in the Liberal papers with the air of governing the Empire. Mrs. Cadell, naturally, took in the _Morning Post_ to keep in touch with that social world where names mean more than personal effort. Cydonia was given the _Daily Mirror_, generally left unread by her and devoured in the Servants' Hall. Once a week _Punch_ arrived and an unwieldy Ladies' journal, while into the depths of the smoking-room was smuggled a certain apricot paper. On this particular winter morning the master of the house had failed to find the notice of a sale in his beloved _Chronicle_. Slightly aggrieved, he made his way into the morning-room beyond, where Helen was occupied poring over household matters. He begged the loan of those crisp sheets, white and pleasant to the touch, that seem to hold a faint suggestion of the class they represent. He was leaving the room when his wife turned and stopped him with an imperious gesture. "Can you spare me a moment, Ebenezer?" The request was in truth a command. "I want to talk about Cydonia?" Cadell, unwillingly, glanced at the clock. "Well--five minutes--if that will do. What's the trouble about, my dear? Hope there's nothing wrong with the child?" "Oh, no. I'm thinking of giving a dance. Cydonia's birthday falls next month. It would be a 'coming-out' affair and I want it--naturally--well done."