A Love Crime

The little drawing-room was illuminated by the soft light of three lamps—tall lamps standing on Japanese vases and bearing globes upon which rested flexible shades of a pale blue tint. The door was hidden by a piece of tapestry; two walls were hung with another piece, which was covered with large figures. Both windows were draped with curtains—drawn just now—of deep red colour and heavy of fold.

The apartment thus closed in had a homelike air, which was heightened by the profusion of small articles scattered over the furniture: photographs set in frames, lacquered boxes, old-fashioned cases, a few Saxon statuettes, books stitched in covers of antique stuff, such as were coming into fashion in the year 1883. The wreathing foliage of an evergreen plant showed in one corner. Close beside it, an open piano displayed its white keys. An English screen with coloured glass and a shelf on which tea-cups, books, or work might be laid, stood in folds on one side of the fire-place. The fire burned with a peaceful crackling noise which formed an accompaniment to the sound proceeding from the tea-pot as the latter received the caresses from the flame of its lamp on the low table designed for such service.

The furniture of the somewhat crowded drawing-room presented that composite appearance which is characteristic of our time, together with the peculiarity that everything in it seemed to be almost too new. At a first glance, certain slight indications would have seemed to show that its Parisian aspect had been voluntarily aimed at. Objects were contrasted here and there; there were, for instance, little old-fashioned silver spoons; on the walls were two excellent copies of small religious pictures, to which memories of childhood were certainly linked, and which could have come only from an old country house. The photographs, also, witnessed, by the dress and demeanour of the relatives or friends represented, to altogether provincial relationships. The feeling of contrast would have become still more perceptible to one visiting the other rooms and finding everywhere evident tokens that the persons dwelling in them had lived but a very short time at Paris.

This small-sized drawing-room belonged to a small-sized house situated at No. 3½, Rue de La Rochefoucauld. The lower part of this street, which descends in a very steep slope to the Rue Saint-Lazare, comprises several private houses of very varied build, and a few retired dwellings surrounded by gardens. The house containing the little drawing-room was built for an actress by a celebrated financier under the Empire, at a period when the Rue de la Tour des Dames harboured many princes and princesses of the footlights. Too small to suit a wealthy family, too inconvenient, owing to certain deficiencies in accommodation, for tenants accustomed to the completeness of English comfort, it must have proved quite seductive to persons accustomed to a semi-country life by its attraction as a "home," as well as by the quiet pervading the end of the street, which is rarely affronted by vehicles on account of the difficulty of the ascent.