With a silly smile he stroked his moustache while looking about him with restless eyes. He had been told that the director of the opera desired to make him an offer and he was on the watch for him afar, feeling even at this early moment the jealousy of an actor and astonished that anybody could spend so much time with that good-for-nothing little singing-girl. Filled with his own thoughts, he took no trouble to answer the beautiful young girl standing before him, her fan in her hand, in that pretty, half-audacious attitude which the habit of society gives. But she loved him better as he was, disdainful and cold toward everything which was not his art; she admired him for accepting loftily the compliments which Cadaillac poured upon him with his off-hand roundness:
“Yes, I tell you ... yes, indeed!... I tell you exactly what I mean ... great deal of talent ... very original, very new; I hope no other theatre save the Opera shall have your first appearance.... I must find some occasion to bring you forward. From to-day on, consider yourself as one of the House!”
Valmajour thought of the paper with the government stamp on it which he had in the pocket of his jacket; but the other man, just as if he divined the thought that possessed him, stretched out his supple hand: “There, that engages us both, my dear fellow;” and pointing out Mayol and Mme. Vauters—who were luckily occupied elsewhere, for they would have laughed too loud—he continued:
“Ask your comrades what the given word of Cadaillac means!” At this he turned on his heel and went back into the ball.
Now it had become a party which had spread into less crowded but more animated rooms, and the fine orchestra was taking its revenge for three hours of classical music by giving waltzes of the purest Viennese variety. The lofty personages and solemn people having left, the floors now belonged to the young people, those maniacs of pleasure who dance for the love of dancing and for the intoxication of flying hair and swimming eyes and trains whipped round about their feet. But even then politics could not lose its rights and the fusion dreamt of by Roumestan did not take place. Even of the two rooms where they danced one of them belonged to the Left Centre and the other to the White, a flower de luce White without a stain, in spite of the efforts Hortense made to bind the two camps together! Much sought out as the sister-in-law of the Minister and daughter of the Chief Judge, she saw about her big marriage portion and her influential connections a perfect flock of waistcoats with their hearts outside.
While dancing with her, Lappara, greatly excited, declared that His Excellency had permitted him—but just there the waltz ended and she left him without listening to the rest and came toward Méjean, who did not dance and yet could not make up his mind to leave.
“What a face you make, most solemn man, man most reasonable!”
He took her by the hand: “Sit down here; I have something to say to you—by the authority of my Minister—”
Very much overcome, he smiled, and while noting the trembling of his lips Hortense understood and rose very quickly.
“No, no, not this evening—I can listen to nothing—I am dancing—”