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Several days, however, went by, and no overtures were made by the Sacred Circle. Madeleine’s stature was beginning to dwindle, and her hair and eyes to regain their ordinary colour, when one morning Jeanne Prunier came up to her, took hold of the little medallion that hung round her neck on a fine gold chain, and said: ‘Tiens! c’est joli, ça.’

This exclamation so often interchanged among the élite, but which Madeleine had never dreamed that any object belonging to her could elicit, was the prelude to a period of almost unearthly bliss. She was told the gallant that each of them was in love with, was given some of Jeanne’s sweet biscuits and quince jam, and was made a member of their Dévises Society. The dévise designed for her was a plant springing out of a tabouret (the symbol of a Duchess); one of its stems bore a violet, the other a Dutch tulip, and over them both hovered the flowery coronet of a Duke—wherein was shown a disregard for botany but an imaginative grasp of Madeleine’s circumstances.