in the most flattering light:

"She is very young," I say; "and then she is too white, too much like
our own women. I wished for a yellow one just as a change."

"But that is only the paint they have put on her, sir! Beneath it, I
assure you, she is yellow."

Yves leans towards me and whispers:

"Look over there, brother, in that corner by the last panel; have you
noticed the one who is sitting down?"

Not I. In my annoyance I had not observed her; she had her back to the
light, was dressed in dark colors, and sat in the careless attitude of
one who keeps in the background. The fact is this one pleased me much
better. Eyes with long lashes, rather narrow, but which would have
been called good in any country in the world; almost an expression,
almost a thought. A coppery tint on her rounded cheeks; a straight
nose; slightly thick lips, but well modeled and with pretty corners.
Less young than Mdlle. Jasmin, about eighteen years of age perhaps,
already more of a woman. She wore an expression of ennui, also of a
little contempt, as if she regretted her attendance at a spectacle
which dragged so much, and was so little amusing.

"M. Kangourou, who is that young lady over there, in dark blue?"

"Over there, sir? A young lady called Mdlle. Chrysantheme. She came
with the others you see here; she is only here as a spectator. She
pleases you?" said he with eager suddenness, espying a way out of his
difficulty. Then, forgetting all his politeness, all his
ceremoniousness, all his Japanesery, he takes her by the hand, forces
her to rise, to stand in the dying daylight, to let herself be seen.
And she, who has followed our eyes and begins to guess what is on
foot, lowers her head in confusion, with a more decided but more
charming pout, and tries to step back, half sulky, half smiling.

"It makes no difference," continues M. Kangourou, "it can be arranged
just as well with this one; she is not married either, sir!"

She is not married! Then why didn't the idiot propose her to me at
once instead of the other, for whom I have a feeling of the greatest
pity, poor little soul, with her pearly gray dress, her sprig of
flowers, her expression which grows sadder, and her eyes which twinkle
like those of a child about to cry.

"It can be arranged, sir!" repeats Kangourou again, who at this moment
appears to me a go-between of the lowest type, a rascal of the meanest
kind.

Only, he adds, we, Yves and I, are in the way during