She now wore straight corsets and petticoats that she could display anywhere.

She frequented the offices of the Ministry, and it is said that, being solicited by the deputy-chief of a department in the Beaux-Arts, she had yielded with very good grace.

At least, so Pradel said.
He would exclaim joyfully: "You wouldn't recognize her now, Mother Nanteuil! She has become most desirable, and I like her better than her little vixen of a daughter.
She has a better disposition." Like the rest of them, Felicie had disdained, despised, disparaged the Comedie-Francaise.

She had said, as all the others did: "I should hardly care to get into that house." And no sooner did she belong to it than she was filled with proud and joyful exultation.

What increased her pleasure twofold was that she was to make her debut in _L'Ecole des Femmes_.