To attain this end, Madame de la Rochaiguë said to Ernestine:
"My darling child, you can judge of the sensation you are creating in spite of the unheard-of simplicity of your toilet. My predictions are more than realised, you see. You are sure to be overwhelmed with invitations to dance, but as it would never do for you to dance with everybody, we will manage in this way. When I think it advisable for you to accept an invitation, I will open my fan; if, on the contrary, I keep it closed, you will decline on the plea that you are dancing very little, and that you have made too many engagements already."
Madame de la Rochaiguë had scarcely addressed this remark to Ernestine before quite a number of young people began to take their places for a quadrille. Several young men who were dying to invite Mlle. de Beaumesnil hesitated a little, rightly thinking that it was hardly the thing to ask her the minute she entered the ball-room; but M. de Macreuse, being either less scrupulous or more daring, did not hesitate a second, but, making his way swiftly through the crowd, begged Ernestine to do him the honour to dance the quadrille that was then forming, with him.
Madame de Senneterre, positively stupefied by what she called such unheard-of audacity on M. de Macreuse's part, turned to hastily implore Madame de la Rochaiguë to give the signal for a refusal, but it was too late.
Mlle. de Beaumesnil, anxious to find herself virtually alone with M. de Macreuse as soon as possible, promptly accepted the invitation, without waiting to note the movements of Madame de la Rochaiguë's fan, and, to that lady's great astonishment, immediately rose, accepted the pious young man's arm, and walked away.
"That scoundrel's insolence is really unbearable!" exclaimed the duchess, wrathfully.
But checking herself suddenly, she exclaimed in an entirely different tone:
"Why, there he is now!"
"Who?"
"Gerald."