“Pardon, monsieur. You are Monsieur Cecil Thorold?”
“I am,” said Cecil.
“Will you kindly follow me? Monsieur the Directeur wishes to see you.”
“You are expected, evidently,” said Lionel Belmont. The girls kept apart, as girls should in these crises between men.
“I have a ticket for this box,” Cecil remarked to the official. “And I wish first to take possession of it.”
“It is precisely that point which Monsieur the Directeur wishes to discuss with Monsieur,” rejoined the official, ineffably suave. He turned with a wonderful bow to the girls, and added with that politeness of which the French alone have the secret: “Perhaps, in the meantime, these ladies would like to see the view of the Avenue de l’Opéra from the balcony? The illuminations have begun, and the effect is certainly charming.”
Cecil bit his lip.
“Yes,” he said. “Belmont, take them.”
So, while Lionel Belmont escorted the girls to the balcony, there to discuss the startling situation and to watch the Imperial party drive up the resplendent, fairy-like, and unique avenue, Cecil followed the official.
He was guided along various passages and round unnumbered corners to the rear part of the colossal building. There, in a sumptuous bureau, the official introduced him to a still higher official, the Directeur, who had a decoration and a long, white moustache.