Having labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great man in the eyes of his sole public.
"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger, how loving, you are tenfold greater still.

But," she added, "a man of genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly beloved child," she said, caressing him.

Then she drew that invitation from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and showed it to him.
"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me face to face with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency shall be made for a time to bend the knee to me." The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the inner circle of the ministry.

It was her day of triumph, her own! Never courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman bestowed upon her person.

No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers.