His real name was Ferdinand, but, following a fashion prevailing among the ultra-republicans, he had renamed himself after the famous Roman patriot.
La Boulaye toyed a moment with his pen, a frown darkening his brow.
Then: "Admit her," he sighed wearily.
And presently she came, a pretty woman, as Brutus had declared, very fair, and with the innocent eyes of a baby.

She was small of stature, and by the egregious height of her plume-crowned head-dress it would seem as if she sought by art to add to the inches she had received from Nature.

For the rest she wore a pink petticoat, very extravagantly beflounced, and a pink corsage cut extravagantly low.

In one hand she carried a fan--hardly as a weapon against heat, seeing that the winter was not yet out--in the other a huge bunch of early roses.
"Te voile!" was her greeting, merrily--roguishly--delivered, and if the Revolution had done nothing else for her, it had, at least, enabled her to address La Boulaye by the "Thou" of intimacy which the new vocabulary prescribed.
La Boulaye rose, laid aside his pen, and politely, if coolly, returned her greeting and set a chair for her.
"You are," said he, "a very harbinger of Spring, Citoyenne, with your flowers and your ravishing toilette." "Ah! I please you, then, for once," said she without the least embarrassment.

"Tell me--how do you find me ?" And, laughing, she turned about that he might admire her from all points of view.
He looked at her gravely for a moment, so gravely that the laughter began to fade from her eyes.
"I find you charming, Citoyenne," he answered at last.