"To be sure!... to be sure!... Both are up-to-date, though!... Trixie Tennyson ... ah, there's a name!... Do you know who Tennyson was, little dears?... A great scientist who discovered the reason why brooks go on forever!" Adèle and Doré smiled, but the rest accepted the information. "Paula Stuart and Consuelo ... dear me! I never did know your last name, Consuelo, darling!"
"Vincent! and cut out the guying!" said a fair buxom type, child of the Rialto. "Let's get a move on!"
"Quite right!" said Busby, offering an arm to Adèle Vickers and Violetta Pax. "Follow me ... always!"
The dressing-room emptied itself, with a last struggle for the mirror, a few hurried applications of rouge, and a loosening of perfumes, while, above the pleasant rustle of skirts, the voice of Georgie Gwynne was heard in a stage whisper:
"Remember, girls! Act refined!"
Consuelo Vincent, under pretext of a cold, insisted on keeping a magnificent sable cape, which she shifted constantly the better to display it.
On perceiving Busby arriving with this bouquet of vermilion smiles, polished teeth and flashing eyes, the Comte de Joncy, who had begun to be restless under the strain of serious conversation, brightened visibly, and holding out both hands, exclaimed with the practised familiarity of a patron of all the arts:
"Why you make me wait so long? Jolis petits amours! Ah, she is charming, this one. What a naughty little eye! Oho! something Spanish—do you dance the Bolero? Ah, but each is perfect—adorable! I could eat every one of them!"
But to this royal affability the ladies of the chorus, very stiff, very correct, lisping a little, made answer:
"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure!"