"Wait," she murmured. "These fools will never have done."
Monsieur de Saffré was placing the Duke de Rozan with his back against the wall, in one corner of the drawing-room, beside he dining-room door. He stationed a lady in front of him, then a gentleman back to back with the lady, then another lady in front of the gentleman, and this in a line, couple by couple, forming as it were a long serpent. As the dancers talked together and tarried behind:
"Come, ladies," he cried, "to your places for the 'columns.'"
They came, and "the columns" were formed. The indecency of finding oneself thus caught, pressed between two men, leaning against the back of one of them, with the chest of the other in front of one, made the ladies very gay. The tips of the women's bosoms touched the facings of the men's dress-coats, the gentlemen's legs disappeared amid the ladies' skirts; and whenever any sudden merriment made a woman's head lean forward, the moustaches in front were obliged to draw back, so as not to carry matters as far as kissing. At one moment a joker must have given a slight push, for the line closed up, the dress-coats plunged deeper into the skirts, there were little cries and laughs, coughs which did not end. The Baroness de Meinhold was heard saying, "But you are stifling me, sir; don't squeeze me so hard!" this seemed so funny, and gave the whole line such an attack of hilarity, that the shaken "columns" staggered, clashed together and leaned upon one another to avoid falling. Monsieur de Saffré waited with his hands raised ready to clap. Then he clapped. At this signal every one abruptly turned round. The couples who were face to face took each other by the waist, and the file dispersed waltzing round the room. The only one left was the poor Duke de Rozan, who on turning round found his nose against the wall. He was derided by everybody.
"Come," said Renée to Maxime.
The orchestra was still playing the waltz. This soft music, the monotonous rhythm of which at last became insipid, increased the young woman's exasperation. She gained the little drawing-room holding Maxime by the hand; and pushing him to the staircase which led to the dressing-room:
"Go up," she ordered.
She followed him. At this moment Madame Sidonie, who, throughout the evening, had been prowling round about her sister-in-law, astonished by her continual promenades through the rooms, just reached the conservatory steps. She saw a man's leg disappear amid the darkness of the little staircase. A pale smile lit up her waxen face, and catching up her sorceress's skirt to walk the quicker, she sought her brother, upsetting a figure of the cotillon and questioning all the servants she met. She at last found Saccard with Monsieur de Mareuil in an apartment which adjoined the dining-room, and which had been turned provisionally into a smoking-room. The two fathers were talking about the dowry and the contract. But when Saccard's sister had said a word in his ear, he rose up, apologised, and disappeared.
Upstairs, the dressing-room was in complete disorder. Over the chairs trailed the costume of the nymph Echo, the torn tights, bits of crumpled lace, under-garments thrown aside in a bundle, everything that a woman, expected elsewhere, leaves in her haste behind her. The little ivory and silver tools lay about a little bit everywhere; there were brushes and files fallen on the carpet; and the towels still damp, the soap forgotten on the marble slab, the scent bottles left open, emitted a strong penetrating perfume in the flesh-tinted tent. To take the white off her arms and shoulders the young woman had dipped herself in the pink marble bath after the tableaux vivants. Iridescent scales expanded on the sheet of water now grown cold.
Maxime stepped on some stays, narrowly missed falling, and tried to laugh. But he shivered at sight of Renée's stern face. She approached him, pushing him, and saying in a low voice: