They asked Lappara, who happened to pass; he laughed.
“Why, it’s Bompard!”
“Quès aco Bompard?” (Who is this Bompard?)
“A friend of Roumestan’s. How is it you have never met him?”
“Is he from the South?”
“Té! I should say so!”
In truth, Bompard, buttoned tightly into a grand new suit with a velvet collar, his gloves thrust into his waistcoat, was really trying to help his friend in the entertainment of his guests by a varied but continuous conversation. Quite unknown in the official world, where he appeared to-day for the first time, he may be said to have made a sensation as he carried his faculty for invention from group to group, telling his marvellous visions, his stories of royal love affairs, adventures and combats, triumphs at the Federal shooting-matches in Switzerland, all of which produced the same effects upon his audience—astonishment, embarrassment and disquiet. Here at least there was an element of gayety, but it was only for a few intimates who knew him. Nothing could dispel the cloud of ennui that penetrated even into the concert room, a large and very picturesque apartment with its two tiers of galleries and its glass ceiling that gave the impression of being under the open sky.
A decoration of green palms and banana-trees, whose long leaves hung motionless in the light of the chandeliers, made a fresh background to the toilettes of the women sitting on numberless rows of chairs placed close together. It was a wave of white moving necks, arms and shoulders rising from their bodices like half-opened flowers, heads dressed with jewelled stars, diamonds flashing against the blue depths of black tresses or waves of gold from the locks of blondes; a mass of lovely figures in profile, full of health, with lines of beauty from waist to throat, or fine slender forms, from a narrow waist clasped by a little jewelled buckle up to a long neck circled with velvet. Fans of all colors, bright with spangles, shot with hues, danced in butterfly lightness over all and mingled the perfumes of “white rose” or opoponax with the feeble breath of white lilacs and natural fresh violets.
The bored expression on the faces of the guests was deeper here as they reflected that for two mortal hours they must sit thus before the platform on which was spread out in a semicircular row the chorus, the men in black coats, the women in white muslin, impassive as if sitting in front of a camera, while the orchestra was concealed behind copses of green leaves and roses, out of which the arms of the bass-viols reared themselves like instruments of torture. Oh, the torment of the “music stocks”! All of them knew it, for it was one of the cruelest fatigues of the season and of their worldly burden. That is why, looking everywhere, the only happy, smiling face to be found in the immense room was that of Mme. Roumestan—not that ballet-dancer’s smile, common to professional hostesses, which so easily changes to a look of angry fatigue when no one is watching. Hers was the face of a happy woman, a woman loved, just starting on a new life.
O, the endless tenderness of an honest soul which has never throbbed but for one person! She had begun to believe again in her Numa; he had been so kind and tender for some time back. It was like a return; it seemed as if their two hearts were closely knit again after a long parting. Without asking whence came this renewal of affection in her husband, she found him loverlike and young once more, as he was the night that she showed him the panel of the hunt; and she herself was still the same fair young Diana, supple and charming in her frock of white brocade, her fair hair simply banded on her brow, so pure and without an evil thought, looking five years younger than her thirty summers!