She was triumphant in beauty; she looked young and gay, and there was a touch of intoxication in her continual smile.
Beside her stood Muffat, looking aged and a little pale, but he, too, was smiling in his calm and worthy fashion.
"And just to think that he was once master," continued Mme Chantereau, "and that not a single rout seat would have come in without his permission! Ah well, she's changed all that; it's her house now.

D'you remember when she did not want to do her drawing room up again?
She's done up the entire house." But the ladies grew silent, for Mme de Chezelles was entering the room, followed by a band of young men.

She was going into ecstasies and marking her approval with a succession of little exclamations.
"Oh, it's delicious, exquisite! What taste!" And she shouted back to her followers: "Didn't I say so?
There's nothing equal to these old places when one takes them in hand.

They become dazzling! It's quite in the grand seventeenth-century style.

Well, NOW she can receive." The two old ladies had again sat down and with lowered tones began talking about the marriage, which was causing astonishment to a good many people.