t us go, Risler. The heat here is enough to kill one."

Just as they rose--for Risler was no more desirous to stay than to
go--the orchestra, consisting of a piano and several violins, began a
peculiar refrain. There was a flutter of curiosity throughout the room,
and cries of "Hush! hush! sit down!"

They were obliged to resume their seats. Risler, too, was beginning to be
disturbed.

"I know that tune," he said to himself. "Where have I heard it?"

A thunder of applause and an exclamation from Planus made him raise his
eyes.

"Come, come, let us go," said the cashier, trying to lead him away.

But it was too late.

Risler had already seen his wife come forward to the front of the stage
and curtsey to the audience with a ballet-dancer's smile.

She wore a white gown, as on the night of the ball; but her whole costume
was much less rich and shockingly immodest.

The dress was barely caught together at the shoulders; her hair floated
in a blond mist low over her eyes, and around her neck was a necklace of
pearls too large to be real, alternated with bits of tinsel. Delobelle
was right: the Bohemian life was better suited to her. Her beauty had
gained an indefinably reckless expression, which was its most
characteristic feature, and made her a perfect type of the woman who has
escaped from all restraint, placed herself at the mercy of every
accident, and is descending stage by stage to the lowest depths of the
Parisian hell, from which nothing is powerful enough to lift her and
restore her to the pure air and the light.

And how perfectly at ease she seemed in her strolling life! With what
self-possession she walked to the front of the stage! Ah! could she have
seen the desperate, terrible glance fixed upon her down there in the
hall, concealed behind a pillar, her smile would have lost that equivocal
placidity, her voice would have sought in vain those wheedling,
languorous tones in which she warbled the only song Madame Dobson had
ever been able to teach her:

Pauv' pitit Mamz'elle Zizi,
C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne
La tete a li.

Risler had risen, in spite of Planus's efforts. "Sit down! sit down!" the
people shouted. The wretched man heard nothing. He was staring at his
wife.

C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne
La tete a li,

Sidonie repeated affectedly.

For a moment he wondered whether he should not leap on the platform and
kill her. Red flames s