With rosy cheeks Renée advanced at a rapid step. Céleste had made the first tights burst; but the young woman had fortunately foreseen the eventuality and taken her precautions. These torn tights had delayed her. She seemed to care little about her triumph. She smiled, however, and briefly answered the men who stopped and complimented her on the purity of her attitudes in the tableaux vivants. Behind her she left a trail of dress coats astonished and charmed by the transparency of her muslin blouse. When she had reached the group of women who surrounded Maxime, she gave rise to curt exclamations, and the marchioness began to look at her from head to foot, with a tender air, and murmuring:
"She is adorably formed."
Madame Michelin, whose alme's costume became horribly heavy beside this simple veil, pursed her lips, while Madame Sidonie, shrivelled up in her black sorceress's dress, murmured in her ear:
"It's the height of indecency, isn't it, my beauty?"
"Ah! yes indeed," said the pretty brunette at last, "Monsieur Michelin would be angry if I undressed myself like that."
"And he would be quite right," concluded the agent.
The band of serious men were not of this opinion. It went into ecstacies at a distance. Monsieur Michelin, whom his wife so inappropriately brought into question, showed himself transported so as to please Monsieur Toutin-Laroche and Baron Gouraud whom the sight of Renée enraptured. Saccard was greatly complimented on the perfection of his wife's figure. He bowed and professed to be very touched. The evening was a good one for him, and but for a preoccupation which darted from his eyes at moments when he cast a rapid glance at his sister, he would have been supremely happy.
"I say, she has never shown us so much," jokingly said Louise in Maxime's ear, and indicating Renée by a glance.
She paused, and then with an undefinable smile:
"At least, to me."