Go, and come back to dress me--I must look my very best."
She went to study herself in the long glass.
"Now, to put our best foot foremost!" said she to herself. "Vice under
arms to meet virtue!--Poor woman, what can she want of me? I cannot
bear to see.
"The noble victim of outrageous fortune!"
And she sang through the famous aria as the maid came in again.
"Madame," said the girl, "the lady has a nervous trembling--"
"Offer her some orange-water, some rum, some broth--"
"I did, mademoiselle; but she declines everything, and says it is an
infirmity, a nervous complaint--"
"Where is she?"
"In the big drawing-room."
"Well, make haste, child. Give me my smartest slippers, the
dressing-gown embroidered by Bijou, and no end of lace frills. Do my
hair in a way to astonish a woman.--This woman plays a part against
mine; and tell the lady--for she is a real, great lady, my girl, nay,
more, she is what you will never be, a woman whose prayers can rescue
souls from your purgatory--tell her I was in bed, as I was playing
last night, and that I am just getting up."
The Baroness, shown into Josepha's handsome drawing-room, did not note
how long she was kept waiting there, though it was a long half hour.
This room, entirely redecorated even since Josepha had had the house,
was hung with silk in purple and gold color. The luxury which fine
gentlemen were wont to lavish on their _petites maisons_, the scenes
of their profligacy, of which the remains still bear witness to the
follies from which they were so aptly named, was displayed to
perfection, thanks to modern inventiveness, in the four rooms opening
into each other, where the warm temperature was maintained by a system
of hot-air pipes with invisible openings.
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