"Why not?"
"It would bother you a good deal while eating."
"Oh, no! I can turn up the barb."
"Take off your mask, pretty stitcher! I am sure that you're lovely enough to paint, and you postpone it only to make your triumph all the greater."
"I won't take off my mask now; no, monsieur, I'm determined on that!"
"She's very obstinate about it!" said Chamoureau to himself, as he escorted his conquest to the ball-room; "it's simply to increase my desire, to inflame my imagination! Female cunning! I know what that is!"
At the moment that the Spaniard and the domino stepped into the space between the ball-room and the stage, a general galop began—one of those monster galops in which the torrent of dancers rushes and leaps and roars to the strains of music which would make mummies dance. Freluchon and Edmond soon whirled by Chamoureau, the first with his arm about a Marquise Pompadour, the second with his little débardeur. The sight electrified our widower, who said to his domino:
"Suppose we venture? what do you say?"
"I ask nothing better."
With that, the lady threw her arm about her escort and they plunged into the infernal galop. Then they had no choice but to go with the crowd, the torrent; for woe betide the man who stops! He is instantly thrown down by those who come behind.