The gay and sentimental revelry goes on. Columbine appears, with Harlequin dancing attendance. Hardly have they come upon the scene when they encounter Pantalon—an odd little figure of fun with yellow coat, green gloves, and a preposterous stripe down the length of his trouser. Concealing her roguish escort behind her petticoat, Columbine makes an easy victim of the senile Pantalon, only to hold him up to ridicule when he plunges into fervent protestations. Heartlessly she mocks her unfortunate dupe as, whirled off his feet by the agile Harlequin, he is made to beat an ignominious retreat.
There follows not only an enchanting pas de deux by Columbine and Harlequin, but some delicious pantomime between the two. Harlequin makes as if to lay his heart at Columbine’s feet (he verily seems to pluck it from his bosom and place it before her): she receives the tribute with becoming favour, and retiring to one of the sofas in the background, continues the flirtation. Whilst the pair are still seated, there trip on to the stage some score of couples, and amongst them Pierrot, once more animated, and again seeking vainly to capture Papillon. His new attempt is no more successful than his first, and in the dance to which all abandon themselves he alone is partnerless.
In some degree inspired out of his melancholy, however, Pierrot capers awkwardly amongst the rest, till Harlequin and Columbine spy a chance for further mischief. They join him in the dance, one on either side, and seizing an opportunity when Pantalon, as undeterred by his first rebuff as a moth whose wings are only singed, is hovering near, they throw the two into collision, deftly envelop them with Pierrot’s long sleeves, and secure the grotesque partnership with a hasty knot. As the curtain descends the two victims of their gay malice are seen stumbling in each other’s clutch amidst the mockery of the dancing throng.