Through the panes of the glass door M. Pageot, first usher of the Collège, watched her approach, his thick mustache slightly lifted in a smile of sympathy.
“Another one!” he thought, remembering all the fashionable ladies whom he had seen come in during the last hour. This one, moreover, was very dainty. Her small, fine, although bold, face, her astrakhan jacket and purple velvet toque with border of astrakhan to match, the curls of which mingled with her own brown hair, an aigrette of white feathers perched on the side, reminded him, reverence apart and minus the whiskers, of an old lithograph which hung above his bed, Murat, Future King of Naples, at the Battle of Eylau.
It was therefore with an eager hand that he opened the door for her.
“What is it you wish, madame?”
“If you please, where is the lecture on Egyptology?”
“M. Rainda lecture? There, you are facing the hall.”
She was rushing forward when M. Pageot held her back with a calm gesture. “It is useless, madame! The hall is full, overcrowded.... Moreover, you will not miss much, for it will be over in five minutes....”
“Thank you,” acknowledged Mme. Chambannes, regretfully, adding, after a pause, “Did you happen to see a tall, fair lady in a blue costume ... with a strapped jacket?”
Pageot tried to recollect.
“See her? See her?... Why, surely I saw her; but, madame, there are so many of them! Upon my word, I do not remember having seen so many people at an opening lecture during the whole fifteen years that I have been an usher of the Collège....” Carelessly he straightened his light nickel chain, and added in the competent tone of one who knew, “I suppose they came on account of his book on Cleopatra....”