ostracism of Parisian
society, where he had neither kindred nor substantial connections of any
sort, and where contempt isolated him more surely than respect isolates
a sovereign when paying a visit. He staggered with embarrassment and
shame. Some one said aloud: "He has been drinking," and all that the
poor man could do was to go back into the salon of his box and close the
door. Ordinarily that little _retiro_ was filled during the entr'actes
with financiers and journalists. They laughed and talked and smoked
there, making a great uproar; the manager always came to pay his
respects to his partner. That evening, not a soul. And the absence of
Cardailhac, with his keen scent for success, showed Jansoulet the full
measure of his disgrace.

"What have I done to them? Why is it that Paris will no longer have
anything to do with me?"

He questioned himself thus in a solitude which was emphasized by the
sounds all about, the sudden turning of keys in the doors of boxes, the
innumerable exclamations of an amused crowd. Then suddenly the newness
of his luxurious surroundings, the odd shadows cast by the Moorish
lantern on the brilliant silk covering of the couch and the hangings
reminded him of the date of his arrival. Six months! Only six months
since he arrived in Paris! Everything consumed and vanished in six
months! He relapsed into a sort of torpor from which he was aroused by
enthusiastic applause and bravos. Clearly this play of _Revolte_ was a
great success. They had now reached the powerful, satirical passages;
and the virulent declamation, a little emphatic in tone but relieved by
a breath of youth and sincerity, made every heart beat fast after the
idyllic effusions of the first act. Jansoulet determined to look and
listen with the rest. After all, the theatre belonged to him. His seat
in that proscenium box had cost him more than a million; surely the
least he was entitled to was the privilege of occupying it.

Behold him seated once more at the front of his box. In the hall a
heavy, suffocating heat, stirred but not dissipated by the waving fans,
their glittering spangles mingling their reflections with the impalpable
outbreathings of the silence. The audience listened intently to an
indignant and spirited passage against the pirates, so numerous at that
period, who had become cocks of the roost after long haunting the
darkest corners to rob all who passed. Certainly Maranne, when he wrote
those fine lines, ha