"First comes the family—we'll leave that. Now, then, who is there? Mme. and Mlle. Chanut, a girl with teeth like the pieces of broken glass people put on their walls—you know what I mean. M. and Mme. de Bélizard—people say that they feed their horses with visiting-cards."
"Renée, Renée, come, what will every one think of you?"
"Oh, my reputation's made. I needn't trouble any more about that. Then, too, if you imagine that people don't say quite as much about me as I say——"
"Oh, let her alone, please, let her alone," said Mme. Bourjot to Mme. Mauperin, and turning to Renée she asked with a smile, "And who comes next?"
"Mme. Jobleau. Ah, she's such a bore with her story about her introduction to Louis Philippe at the Tuileries. 'Yes, sire; yes, sire; yes, sire;' that was all she found to say. M. Harambourg, who can't stand any dust—it makes him faint—every summer he leaves his man-servant in Paris to get the dust from between the cracks of the floors. Mlle. de la Boise, surnamed the Grammar Dragoon; she used to be a governess, and she will correct you during a conversation if you make a slip with the subjunctive mood. M. Loriot, President of the Society for the Destruction of Vipers. The Cloquemins, father, mother, and children, a family—well, like Pan's pipes. Ah! to be sure, the Vineux are in Paris; but it's no use inviting them; they only go to see people who live on the omnibus route. Why, I was forgetting the Méchin trio—three sisters—the Three Graces of Batignolles. One of them is an idiot, one——"
Renée stopped short as she saw Noémi's scared eyes and horrified expression. She looked like some poor, loving creature, who scarcely understood, but who had suddenly been troubled and stirred to the depth of her soul by all this backbiting. Getting up from her seat Renée ran across and kissed her. "Silly girl!" she said gently, "why, these people I am talking about are not people that I like."
XVII
Henri only came to the last rehearsals. He knew the play and was ready with his part in a week. The Caprice was a very short piece for the soirée, and it was decided to finish up with something comic. Two or three short plays given at the Palais Royal were tried, but given up as there were not enough actors, and finally a very nonsensical thing was chosen that was just then having a great run in one of the smaller theatres, and which Henri had insisted on in spite of Mlle. Bourjot's apparently groundless objection to it. Considering her usual timidity, every one was surprised at her obstinacy on this point; but it seemed, since Henri had been there, as if she were not quite herself. Renée fancied at times that Noémi was not the same with her now, and that her friendship had cooled. She was surprised to see a spirit of contradiction in her which she had never known before, and she was quite hurt at Noémi's manner to her brother. She was very cool with him, and treated him with a shade of disdain which bordered on contempt. Henri was always polite, attentive, and ready to oblige, but nothing more. In all the scenes in which he and Noémi acted together he was so reserved, so correct, and indeed so circumspect, that Renée, who feared that the coldness of his acting would spoil the play, joked him about it.
"Pooh!" he answered, "I'm like the great actors. I'm keeping my effects for the first night."