"No, really, I am tired, ah! how tired I am!"
And her eyes repeated the avowal of her lips.
"But," she continued, "let us have a truce, I want to amuse myself, I want to forget, in purely nervous excitements, the struggle I am engaged with. Leave me to my partners and come to-morrow. I am very much disturbed. Come with confidence: no one has as many privileges with me as you have, Hubert, but think of all that can happen in a second, a single brief second. Here is Monsieur de Fortier come to claim me.... A demain!"
Then, instead of rejoining his friends, he strolled about, insinuating himself into groups, watching, listening.
A young girl, thin and ugly, despite large dark eyes, was languidly dreaming in a chair. The fancy seized him to amuse this child. He bowed to her and the young girl, heedless of etiquette, let herself be lifted into these strange arms. The waltz made her little heart beat, her pale cheeks grew rosy, she pressed Entragues hand and in the boldness of pleasure let her bent and radiant head fall on his shoulder. He made her chat, treated her as a woman, conducted her to the refreshment-room, made her tipsy with a little champagne and a few compliments: he was thanked with a smile, which expressed the gift of a life.
In bringing her back to her place, he was almost as happy as she was and he thought that the only happiness lies in giving happiness without demanding a return.
Towards two o'clock, he resisted Calixte Heliot who discreetly tried to draw him away. Later, he saw Moscowitch, after consulting his watch, disappear into the antechamber. Sixtine brushed past him at the same instant; she turned around, chattering, on the arm of Renaudeau, who seemed to be telling her something malicious. For an hour, perhaps more, he remained in the same place, alone and motionless, watching her pass from hand to hand, carefree and smiling. He watched with an empty brain, rendered anaemic by the late hour, fuddled by the incessant bustle. Finally the rooms began to thin. While he was hesitating to offer himself to Sixtine as an escort, she vanished, flying, without turning her head, like a woman quite decided to refuse or to accept only with boredom and bad grace the arm of a man.
He suffered her to leave, went to compliment the countess, bowed to the young girl who gave him her hand, drank a last glass of punch, so as to be less affected by the morning chill, then departed in his turn and returned on foot to his dwelling.