tered Hector, whose
long thin face assumed an expression of vexation. "Only this morning
Clarisse, who's in the piece, swore that they'd begin at nine o'clock
punctually."

For a moment they remained silent and, looking upward, scanned the
shadowy boxes. But the green paper with which these were hung rendered
them more shadowy still. Down below, under the dress circle, the lower
boxes were buried in utter night. In those on the second tier there was
only one stout lady, who was stranded, as it were, on the velvet-covered
balustrade in front of her. On the right hand and on the left, between
lofty pilasters, the stage boxes, bedraped with long-fringed scalloped
hangings, remained untenanted. The house with its white and gold,
relieved by soft green tones, lay only half disclosed to view, as though
full of a fine dust shed from the little jets of flame in the great
glass luster.

"Did you get your stage box for Lucy?" asked Hector.

"Yes," replied his companion, "but I had some trouble to get it. Oh,
there's no danger of Lucy coming too early!"

He stifled a slight yawn; then after a pause:

"You're in luck's way, you are, since you haven't been at a first night
before. The Blonde Venus will be the event of the year. People have been
talking about it for six months. Oh, such music, my dear boy! Such a
sly dog, Bordenave! He knows his business and has kept this for the
exhibition season." Hector was religiously attentive. He asked a
question.

"And Nana, the new star who's going to play Venus, d'you know her?"

"There you are; you're beginning again!" cried Fauchery, casting up his
arms. "Ever since this morning people have been dreeing me with Nana.
I've met more than twenty people, and it's Nana here and Nana there!
What do I know? Am I acquainted with all the light ladies in Paris? Nana
is an invention of Bordenave's! It must be a fine one!"

He calmed himself, but the emptiness of the house, the dim light of
the luster, the churchlike sense of self-absorption which the place
inspired, full as it was of whispering voices and the sound of doors
banging--all these got on his nerves.

"No, by Jove," he said all of a sudden, "one's hair turns gray here.
I--I'm going out. Perhaps we shall find Bordenave downstairs. He'll give
us information about things."

Downstairs in the great marble-paved entrance hall, where the box office
was, the public were beginning to show themselves. Through the three
open gates might