“What grace, what majesty!”
That was the signal for the wreath to descend. Raymond let the cord go; a sudden murmur ran through the hall, then bursts of laughter arose on all sides.
“Stop! stop!” someone called from the stage. Raymond put his head out from the wings to witness the tableau, and saw that, instead of a wreath of flowers, he had lowered a syringe on Fanchon’s head.
The confusion was at its height; the hall rang with laughter, while on the stage wrath at Raymond’s blundering folly was still predominant. The young lady who had played Fanchon was obliged to push the syringe away from her head. Raymond dropped the cord and ran out on the stage, crying:
“It wasn’t my fault; it’s Pourceaugnac’s syringe—and that idiot of a gardener forgot to take it off! It should have been a wreath. But we’ll make up for this.—Forward, Cupids!”
He gave the signal, the orchestra played Zéphire’s air from Psyche, and everybody waited impatiently for what was coming. Again Raymond clapped his hands.
“Come on, Cupids!” he cried; “come out, I say!”
But nothing came out of the prompter’s box. The audience, tired of waiting to no purpose, prepared to leave the hall, and the actors to vacate the stage. In vain did Raymond try to detain them, crying:
“They’re coming! they’ll appear in a minute! they must be putting on the bands!”
Nobody listened to him. In his rage he determined to find his Cupids, at all events; he jumped down into the prompter’s box, looked under the stage and in every corner of the building, but he did not succeed in finding them.