th the Princess in a jovial way, took a seat
near her without being invited, and forthwith denounced the dirty
_bourgeoisie_ which came to wallow in places of ill fame. Rosemonde was
delighted, and encouraged him, but others near by began to get angry, and
Bergaz examined him with his piercing eyes, like a man of energy who
acts, and lets others talk. Now and then, too, he exchanged quick glances
of intelligence with his silent lieutenants, Sanfaute and Rossi, who
plainly belonged to him, both body and soul. They were the ones who found
their profit in Anarchy, practising it to its logical conclusions,
whether in crime or in vice.

Meantime, pending the arrival of Legras with his "Flowers of the
Pavement," two female vocalists had followed one another on the stage,
the first fat and the second thin, one chirruping some silly love songs
with an under-current of dirt, and the other shouting the coarsest of
refrains, in a most violent, fighting voice. She had just finished amidst
a storm of bravos, when the assembly, stirred to merriment and eager for
a laugh, suddenly exploded once more. Silviane was entering the little
box at one end of the hall. When she appeared erect in the full light,
with bare arms and shoulders, looking like a planet in her gown of yellow
satin and her blazing diamonds, there arose a formidable uproar, shouts,
jeers, hisses, laughing and growling, mingled with ferocious applause.
And the scandal increased, and the vilest expressions flew about as soon
as Duvillard, Gerard and Duthil also showed themselves, looking very
serious and dignified with their white ties and spreading shirt fronts.

"We told you so!" muttered Duvillard, who was much annoyed with the
affair, while Gerard tried to conceal himself in a dim corner.

She, however, smiling and enchanted, faced the public, accepting the
storm with the candid bearing of a foolish virgin, much as one inhales
the vivifying air of the open when it bears down upon one in a squall.
And, indeed, she herself had sprung from the sphere before her, its
atmosphere was her native air.

"Well, what of it?" she said replying to the Baron who wanted her to sit
down. "They are merry. It's very nice. Oh! I'm really amusing myself!"

"Why, yes, it's very nice," declared Duthil, who in like fashion set
himself at his ease. "Silviane is right, people naturally like a laugh
now and then!"

Amidst the uproar, which did not cease, little Princess Rosemonde rose
en