Certainly the pair provoked the glances of the well-dressed crowd which was streaming out of the auditorium into the big hall. And the eyes of the demi-mondaines who passed Madame Landeau fastened on her dress as though to estimate its price and its cut and to guess how her beauty would look when stripped of it.
She gave her escort a light tap across his fingers.
“You, you, I mean. You are the only person here who has any interest for me.”
“What about the old gentleman in the box?”
“He does my shopping for me!”
Strengthened by the thought of Paule, he strove to elude his temptress, whose soft arm he felt—not without a flutter of the heart—hang so heavily on his. Her burning, eager face under its mantling blush wore a look of discouragement.
“Do you remember, Jean, the wood at La Chênaie?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, remembering that it was there that Marcel’s fate had been settled.
“I should love to go back there with you. Did you like me better when I was a young girl? Be candid.”
“You are more beautiful now and yet different. I always see your husband behind you.”