"Well, well," thought Calyste, who was making progress in
dissimulation, "I must get out of it by a present--Dear little
mother," he said aloud, taking her round the waist with more cajolery
than he would have used if he had not been conscious of guilt, "I see
that it is quite impossible to keep a secret, however innocent, from
the woman who loves us--"

"Well, don't tell secrets on the staircase," she said, laughing. "Come
in."

In the middle of a salon which adjoined their bedroom, she caught
sight in a mirror of Calyste's face, on which, not aware that it could
be seen, he allowed his real feelings and his weariness to appear.

"Now for your secret?" she said, turning round.

"You have shown such heroism as a nurse," he said, "that the heir
presumptive of the Guenics is dearer to me than ever, and I wanted to
give you a surprise, precisely like any bourgeois of the rue Saint
Denis. They are finishing for you at this moment a dressing-table at
which true artists have worked, and my mother and aunt Zephirine have
contributed."

Sabine clasped him in her arms, and held him tightly to her breast
with her head on his neck, faint with the weight of happiness, not for
the piece of furniture, but for the dispersion of her first dark
doubt. It was one of those magnificent transports which can be
counted, and which no love, however excessive, can prodigally spend,
or life would be too soon burned out. Then, indeed, men should fall at