or no. The sisters kept on their costumes; Colette was enchanting
with her bare neck, her long-waisted black velvet corsage, her very short
skirt, and a sort of three-cornered hat upon her head. All the men paid
court to her, and she accepted their homage, becoming gayer and gayer at
every compliment, laughing loudly, possibly that her laugh might exhibit
her beautiful teeth.

Wanda, as Pierrot, sang, with her hands in her pockets, a Russian village
song: "Ah! Dounai-li moy Dounai" ("Oh! thou, my Danube"). Then she
imperiously called Jacqueline to the piano:--"It is your turn now," she
said, "most humble violet."

Up to that moment, Jacqueline's deep mourning had kept the gentlemen
present from addressing her, though she had been much stared at. Although
she did not wish to sing, for her heart was heavy as she thought of the
troubles that awaited her the next day at the convent, she sang what was
asked of her without resistance or pretension. Then, for the first time,
she experienced the pride of triumph. Szmera, though he was furious at
not being the sole lion of the evening, complimented her, bowing almost
to the ground, with one hand on his heart; Madame Rochette assured her
that she had a fortune in her throat whenever she chose to seek it;
persons she had never seen and who did not know her name, pressed her
hands fervently, saying that her singing was adorable. All cried
"Encore," "Encore!" and, yielding to the pleasure of applause, she
thought no more of the flight of time. Dawn was peeping through the
windows when the party broke up.

"What kind people!" thought the debutante, whom they had encouraged and
applauded; "some perhaps are a little odd, but how much cordiality and
warmth there is among them! It is catching. This is the sort of
atmosphere in which talent should live."

Being very much fatigued, she fell asleep upon the offered sofa,
half-pleased, half-frightened, but with two prominent convictions: one,
that she was beginning to return to life; the other, that she stood on
the edge of a precipice. In her dreams old Rochette appeared to her, her
face like that of an affable frog, her dress the dress of Pierrot, and
she croaked out, in a variety of tones: "The stage! Why not? Applauded
every night--it would be glorious!" Then she seemed in her dream to be
falling, falling down from a great height, as one falls from fairyland
into stern reality. She opened her eyes: it was noon. Madame Odinska was
wai