somewhere--at the casino, I imagine, and she
got herself taken up there--she was so drunk."

"As for me," said the journalist, "I don't quite know where it was. I am
like you; I certainly have come across her."

He lowered his voice and asked, laughing:

"At the Tricons', perhaps."

"Egad, it was in a dirty place," Mignon declared. He seemed exasperated.
"It's disgusting that the public give such a reception to the first
trollop that comes by. There'll soon be no more decent women on the
stage. Yes, I shall end by forbidding Rose to play."

Fauchery could not restrain a smile. Meanwhile the downward shuffle
of the heavy shoes on the steps did not cease, and a little man in a
workman's cap was heard crying in a drawling voice:

"Oh my, she ain't no wopper! There's some pickings there!"

In the passage two young men, delicately curled and formally resplendent
in turndown collars and the rest, were disputing together. One of
them was repeating the words, "Beastly, beastly!" without stating any
reasons; the other was replying with the words, "Stunning, stunning!" as
though he, too, disdained all argument.

La Faloise declared her to be quite the thing; only he ventured to
opine that she would be better still if she were to cultivate her voice.
Steiner, who was no longer listening, seemed to awake with a start.
Whatever happens, one must wait, he thought. Perhaps everything will be
spoiled in the following acts. The public had shown complaisance, but it
was certainly not yet taken by storm. Mignon swore that the piece would
never finish, and when Fauchery and La Faloise left them in order to
go up to the foyer he took Steiner's arm and, leaning hard against his
shoulder, whispered in his ear:

"You're going to see my wife's costume for the second act, old fellow.
It IS just blackguardly."

Upstairs in the foyer three glass chandeliers burned with a brilliant
light. The two cousins hesitated an instant before entering, for the
widely opened glazed doors afforded a view right through the gallery--a
view of a surging sea of heads, which two currents, as it were, kept in
a continuous eddying movement. But they entered after all. Five or six
groups of men, talking very loudly and gesticulating, were obstinately
discussing the play amid these violent interruptions; others were filing
round, their heels, as they turned, sounding sharply on the waxed floor.
To right and left, between columns of variegated imitation marbl