Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/67

Rh the Rue Cassini, he insisted on putting on a new and magnificent dressing-gown, of which he was exceedingly vain, to display to his guests, of whom Madame Dudevant was one; and not satisfied therewith, must needs go forth, thus accoutred, to light them on their walk home. All the way he continued to hold forth to them about four Arab horses, which he had not got yet, but meant to get soon, and of which, though he never got them at all, he firmly believed himself to have been possessed for some time. "He would have escorted us thus," says Madame Dudevant, "from one extremity of Paris to another, if we had let him."

Twice again before the end of the year, faithful to her original intentions, we find her returning to her place as mistress of the house at Nohant, occupying herself with her children, and working at the novel Indiana, which was to create her reputation the following year.

Meantime, a novelette, La Prima Donna, the outcome of the literary collaboration with Jules Sandeau, had found its way into a magazine, the Revue de Paris; and was followed by a longer work of fiction, of the same double authorship, entitled Rose et Blanche, published under Sandeau's nom de plume of Jules Sand.

This literary partnership was not to last long, and to-day the novel will be found omitted in the list of the respective works of its authors. Its perusal will hardly repay the curious. The powerful genius of Madame Dudevant, the elegant talent of the author