ritters a la Pompadour were being
mangled. The champagne, however, which had been drunk ever since the
soup course, was beginning little by little to warm the guests into
a state of nervous exaltation. They ended by paying less attention to
decorum than before. The women began leaning on their elbows amid the
disordered table arrangements, while the men, in order to breathe more
easily, pushed their chairs back, and soon the black coats appeared
buried between the light-colored bodices, and bare shoulders, half
turned toward the table, began to gleam as soft as silk. It was too
hot, and the glare of the candles above the table grew ever yellower and
duller. Now and again, when a women bent forward, the back of her neck
glowed golden under a rain of curls, and the glitter of a diamond clasp
lit up a lofty chignon. There was a touch of fire in the passing
jests, in the laughing eyes, in the sudden gleam of white teeth, in the
reflection of the candelabra on the surface of a glass of champagne. The
company joked at the tops of their voices, gesticulated, asked questions
which no one answered and called to one another across the whole length
of the room. But the loudest din was made by the waiters; they fancied
themselves at home in the corridors of their parent restaurant;
they jostled one another and served the ices and the dessert to an
accompaniment of guttural exclamations.

"My children," shouted Bordenave, "you know we're playing tomorrow. Be
careful! Not too much champagne!"

"As far as I'm concerned," said Foucarmont, "I've drunk every imaginable
kind of wine in all the four quarters of the globe. Extraordinary
liquors some of 'em, containing alcohol enough to kill a corpse! Well,
and what d'you think? Why, it never hurt me a bit. I can't make myself
drunk. I've tried and I can't."

He was very pale, very calm and collected, and he lolled back in his
chair, drinking without cessation.

"Never mind that," murmured Louise Violaine. "Leave off; you've had
enough. It would be a funny business if I had to look after you the rest
of the night."

Such was her state of exaltation that Lucy Stewart's cheeks were
assuming a red, consumptive flush, while Rose Mignon with moist eyelids
was growing excessively melting. Tatan Nene, greatly astonished at the
thought that she had overeaten herself, was laughing vaguely over her
own stupidity. The others, such as Blanche, Caroline, Simonne and Maria,
were all talking at once