Mario sat by the fireplace dreaming, amid the uproar. Close beside him stood Clindor, become as stout-hearted a youth as his master, but somewhat awed to find himself surrounded by the nobility. He took no part in the noisy conversation; but he was burning to muster courage to do so, while Mario's reverie was cradled by the tumult, which neither tempted nor annoyed him.
Suddenly Mario saw a creature of most extraordinary aspect enter the room. It was a small, thin, dark girl, dressed in an incomprehensible costume; five or six skirts of brilliant hues, each one shorter than the next below; a waist glistening with tinsel and spangles, a quantity of multi-colored plumes in her crimped and curled hair, innumerable necklaces and gold and silver chains; she was covered with bracelets, rings, and glass ornaments, to her very shoes.
That strange creature was of no age. She might have been a precocious child or a worn-out woman. She was very small, ugly when she chose to smile and talk like other people, beautiful when she flew into a temper, which latter seemed to be with her a constant necessity or a normal condition. She insulted the inn-servants because they did not serve her quickly enough, swore at the troopers because they did not make room for her, clawed those who tried to take liberties with her, and retorted with indescribable blasphemy upon those who made sport of her absurd costume and her savage humor.
Mario was wondering with what purpose so shrewish a creature had introduced herself into such company, when a stout woman with a pimply face, absurdly bedizened with wretched gewgaws, also entered the room, laden with boxes like a mule, and called for silence. She had some difficulty in obtaining it, but at last delivered in French a sort of announcement, overflowing with hyperbolical laudation of her companion, the incomparable Pilar, Moorish dancer and infallible soothsayer, possessed of all the learning of the Arabs.
That name Pilar aroused Mario from his lethargy. He examined the two gypsies, and, despite the change that had taken place in them, recognized in one the pupil, victim and executioner of the miserable La Flèche; in the other the ex-Bellinde of Briantes, the ex-Proserpine of Captain Macabre, now styling herself Narcissa Bobolina, lute-player, dealer in laces, and on occasion mender and plaiter of ruffles.
The company assented to an exhibition of the talents proclaimed. Bellinde played the lute with more energy than correctness, and the dancer, for whom they made room by climbing on the tables, gave a display of epileptic agility, her extraordinary suppleness and energetic grace winning frantic applause from an assemblage already much excited by wine, tobacco and discussion.
Pilar's success with those inflamed imaginations simply intensified Mario's disgust, and he was about to retire; but he had sufficient curiosity to listen to the predictions which she was beginning to make on general subjects, while waiting for someone to ask her to reveal the secret of his future.
"Speak, speak, young sibyl!" was the cry on all sides. "Shall we be lucky in war? Shall we force the Pas de Suse to-morrow?"
"Yes, if you are in a state of grace," she replied disdainfully; "but as there is not a man among you who is not covered with mortal sins as with blotches of leprosy, I am sorely afraid for your soft white skins!"
"Stay," said someone, "we have here a chaste and gentle stripling, an angel from heaven, Mario de Bois-Doré! Let him begin the test and question the soothsayer."