At the time when this _Drama_ opens, if Cousin Betty would have
allowed herself to be dressed like other people; if, like the women of
Paris, she had been accustomed to wear each fashion in its turn, she
would have been presentable and acceptable, but she preserved the
stiffness of a stick. Now a woman devoid of all the graces, in Paris
simply does not exist. The fine but hard eyes, the severe features,
the Calabrian fixity of complexion which made Lisbeth like a figure by
Giotto, and of which a true Parisian would have taken advantage, above
all, her strange way of dressing, gave her such an extraordinary
appearance that she sometimes looked like one of those monkeys in
petticoats taken about by little Savoyards. As she was well known in
the houses connected by family which she frequented, and restricted
her social efforts to that little circle, as she liked her own home,
her singularities no longer astonished anybody; and out of doors they
were lost in the immense stir of Paris street-life, where only pretty
women are ever looked at.
Hortense's laughter was at this moment caused by a victory won over
her Cousin Lisbeth's perversity; she had just wrung from her an avowal
she had been hoping for these three years past.
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