Lucien laughed.
“So that affair’s settled then,” he said. “Mademoiselle is one of those who arrive early and stay late. I felicitate her.”
Pauline looked straight in front of her, her eyes had an icy glitter in them; she was profoundly angry and bitterly disappointed. Jean, looking at her, felt a sick distaste for the whole performance—this, then, was music—the goddess of his lonely soul! Was experience, then, merely a prompt profanation of dreams? If so, what a pity ever to awake! A silent, slender girl beside him made a stifled sound. She had worked for four years upon the solo parts of Parsifal, and her voice was worth three of the rich Jewess’s clever but mediocre gift. Hester Lévi looked at her watch. There was a stir at the other end of the room. The door opened quickly. A dapper-looking man of early middle age, rather fat and very pink with an air of just having arrived from a lengthy toilet, stepped briskly forward. He smiled continuously and rubbed his plump little hands together. He spoke obsequiously to Hester Lévi.
“You will not be kept waiting more than one moment, I promise you,” he said. “How charmingly you are looking this morning! I can see your little holiday has agreed with you! Torialli is longing to hear how the voice goes.”
He turned as if he meant to speak to Pauline.
“Ah! Mademoiselle—” he began.
Pauline stood up; her cold grey eyes fastened themselves like a gimlet into the face of the man before her. The smile slipped from his face; he turned white and flinched like a dog.
“Well,” said Pauline with a grim smile. “It seems I’m come back too, Monsieur Flaubert. Torialli has arranged for me to have another accompagnateur. A gentleman who knows how to do accounts, how to play the piano, and how to behave!”
Flaubert stepped back a little and gave a slight grimace and a slighter bow. “The gentleman is to be congratulated, I take it, Mademoiselle, on his opportunity,” he replied softly. “Monsieur D’Ucelles is, I believe, the name of this personage. I do not know yet if he has arrived.”
Jean stepped forward. The occasion seemed to him singularly uncomfortable, but he tried to put some conciliation into his bow.