ly, the freshness
of his luxurious surroundings, the Moorish lantern casting strange
shadows on the brilliant silks of the divan and walls, reminded him of
the date of his arrival. Six months! Only six months since he came to
Paris! Completely done for and ruined in six months! He sank into a
kind of torpor, from which he was roused by the sound of applause
and enthusiastic bravos. It was decidedly a great success--this play
_Revolt_. There were some passages of strength and satire, and the
violent tirades, a trifle over-emphatic but written with youth and
sincerity, excited the audience after the idyllic calm of the opening.
Jansoulet in his turn wished to hear and see. This theatre belonged to
him after all. His place in that stage-box had cost him over a million
francs; the very least he could do was to occupy it.

So he seated himself in the front of his box. In the theatre the heat
was suffocating in spite of the fans which were vigorously at work,
throwing reflections from their bright spangles through the impalpable
atmosphere of silence. The house was listening religiously to an
indignant and lofty denunciation of the scamps who occupied exalted
positions, after having robbed their fellows in those depths from which
they were sprung. Certainly, Maranne when he wrote these fine lines
had been far from having the Nabob in his mind. But the public saw
an allusion in them; and while a triple salvo of applause greeted the
conclusion of the speech, all heads were turned towards the stage-box on
the left with an indignant, openly offensive movement. The poor wretch,
pilloried in his own theatre! A pillory which had cost him so dear!
This time he made no attempt to escape the insult, but settled himself
resolutely in his seat, with arms folded, and braved the crowd that was
staring at him--those hundreds of faces raised in mockery, that virtuous
_tout Paris_ which had seized upon him as a scapegoat and was driving
him into the wilderness, after having laden him with the burden of all
its own crimes.

A pretty gang, truly, for a manifestation of that kind! Opposite, the
box of a bankrupt banker, the wife and her lover sitting next each
other in the front row, the husband behind in the shadow, voluntarily
inconspicuous and solemn. Near them the frequent trio of a mother who
has married her daughter in accordance with the personal inclination
of her own heart, in order to make a son-in-law of her lover. Then
irregular ho