“Oh, it wasn’t Torialli’s fault,” said a famous tenor (so famous that from Torialli’s point of view he was almost as good as an amateur). “You’d have, you know, to chain Clara up to prevent her. Why, I heard her sing at Chevillard myself last week, and when I met Torialli afterwards his language quite astonished me; nothing but the fact that she’s got the largest fortune in Paris prevented him from suing her on the spot. One doesn’t, you see, try to take money from people who have it, only from poor devils like ourselves, who haven’t a sou to live upon!” This was really a great joke, for Lucien had any other quality of the devil rather than the one he was usually most eager to assume.
The door opened, and a dark, handsomely dressed woman entered. A glance at her assured Jean that she belonged to that race whose marked features, both physical and mental, have caused it to be the most hated, feared, and despised in the world.
Hester Lévi was no bad example of her creed. She looked gracefully immobile and rather feline, the only feature that lived in her little expressionless face was her marvellous great eyes—out of them shone an untameable fire. As she advanced to the centre of the room the little group stood back to let her pass. She represented the two greatest powers in the world—money and brains, and she made the many fat women in the room look strangely insignificant beside her tiny forceful little figure. She lifted her heavy eyelids and bowed unwillingly from right to left.
“So you’re back!” said Pauline without rising. “But I might have known that as soon as there was wind of the Toriallis coming you’d get to know of it. I guess there isn’t much going on that you don’t know!”
Hester Lévi looked wearily about her before she loosened her heavy furs and sank into a seat the great tenor stepped forward hastily to offer her.
“Yes,” she said, without looking at Pauline. “I knew.”
“Well, you’d better tell me how long he means to take you for this season?” said Pauline dryly; “then we can’t have another mix up.”
A curious light flickered across Mademoiselle Lévi’s eyes.
“I am to have extra time, I fancy,” she said, “to practise the solos for Parsifal.”
There was a hush over the whole room—so Hester, then, was to take the coveted part. A hurricane of short angry whispers arose in the further corner of the room; the little group about Miriam and Pauline exchanged glances.