as
the creatures of the other world; she also bowed and from time to time
extended her gloved hand mechanically; pale she looked in her decollete
gown of white satin, clasped at the shoulders with two pearl clasps, a
bouquet of natural roses in her corsage, and standing there like a
melancholy spectre on the very threshold of the festive salons.

When she perceived Guy enter, she greeted him with a sad smile, and
Vaudrey eagerly offered his hand to him as if he relied greatly on him
to arrange matters.

Adrienne's repressed grief had pained Lissac. While to the other guests
she appeared to be only somewhat fatigued, to him the open wound and
sorrow were visible. He plunged into the crowd. Beneath the streaming
light the diamonds on the women's shoulders gleamed like the lustres'
crystals. Within a frame of gobelins and Beauvais tapestry taken from
the repository, was an improvised scene that looked like a green and
pink nest of camellias, dracaenas and palms. The bright toilettes of the
women already seated before this scenic effect presented a wealth of
pale blue, white or pink silk, mother-of-pearl shoulders, diamonds, and
bows of pink or feather headdresses. Guy recognized Madame Marsy in the
front row, robed in a very low-cut, sea-green satin robe with a bouquet
of flowers at the tip of the shoulder, who while fanning herself looked
with haughty impertinence at the pretty Madame Gerson, her former
friend. Madame Evan was numerously surrounded, she was the most charming
of all the stylish set and the woman whom all the others tried to copy.

Behind this species of female flower-bed the black coated ranks crowded,
their sombre hue relieved here and there by the uniform of some French
officer or foreign military attache. There was a profusion of orders,
crosses and strange old faces, with red ribbons at the neck, deputies
evidently in dress, youthful attaches of the ministry or embassy,
correct in bearing and officious, their crush-hats under their arms and
holding the satin programme of the _musicale soiree_ in their hands,
some numbers of which were about to be rendered. Under the ceilings that
were dappled with painted clouds, surrounded by brilliant lights and a
wealth of flowers, this crowd presented at once an aspect of luxury and
oddity, with its living antitheses of old parliamentarians and tyros of
the Assembly.

Intermingled with strains of music, were whisperings and the confused
noise of conversations.