Mademoiselle Elise was down early at the theatre, which looked very grey and very miserable in the pitiless daylight. M. Lorman was with her. When Raoul appeared, she said:
"So this is your monster. Introduce him to me."
And the hunchback, with his fiddle under his arm and his bow hanging loosely from his left hand, was duly presented. Mademoiselle's eyes beamed graciously as she held out her hand and said what pleasure it gave her to make the acquaintance of one who loved art for its own sake. Then, while M. Lorman bustled here and there, she took the violin and begged Raoul to show her how to hold it. She laughed like a child when the drawing of the bow across the strings only produced a horrid noise. Then she asked him to play the dance movement from the garden scene.
He played.
"A little slower, please."
He played more slowly. She moved a few steps, and then paused and sat down, marking the time of the music with her foot.
"Yes, that is beautiful!" she said.
Raoul sat and watched while the rehearsal proceeded.
They played "Le vrai Amant." Mademoiselle infused a new life into all, and scarcely seemed to feel the labour of it. Raoul marvelled that a woman, apparently delicate, should be possessed of such tireless energy. She criticised so freely, and insisted so much on the repetition of seeming trivialities, that, as the morning wore on, Augustin—who was "le vrai Amant"—lost patience and glanced markedly at his watch. But she did not heed him.
Beside Raoul sat M. Lorman, in high spirits. "Good! good!" he ejaculated at intervals. "But she is marvellous!" And after each outburst of satisfaction he took a pinch of snuff.