"She was in full dinner-dress, a beautiful blue silk, fresh from the dressmaker's—in fact, the modiste was putting in the last pins as we came in. She was going to the Champs Élysées to dine en petite comité at Émile de Girardin's.
"She appeared as well as I had ever known her, both in point of beauty and health, and I thought she had fairly recovered from her American misfortunes. Although it was July, she complained of the cold, and laughed and talked as she lit the fire, but said her voice was hopelessly gone. She spoke of her great rival, Ristori, with an earnestness and intensity of interest which showed how much she had been stung at the disparaging comparisons made between them. She discussed her merit with wonderful tact and fairness; but it was evident that she longed, if it had only been possible, for a contest face to face with her, in order that the world might do her justice."
After her return from Ems, later in the summer, Rachel wrote again to Houssaye, her directeur spirituel, asking him to come to Meulan to pay her another visit:—
"My dear Causeur (others are only bavards),—Come here and gossip with me, under the trees, of the days that are past. Sometimes I really think I have had no past. Life is a dream following a dream. We are never quite awake to the realities of life.
"I forgot to give you a lesson in billiards the other day. Come quickly; I will win some points from you. Unfortunately, I score always a black mark."
"Saint Victor," writes Houssaye, "came with me to Meulan. 'When I think,' Rachel said to him, 'that you have written so much about me, and I never have taken the trouble to read anything of yours.'
