When at last Mademoiselle sank exhausted into her chair, the others seized hats and cloaks and fled hurriedly, lest she should revive and begin all over again.
She called to Raoul to bring his score, that she might show him where to play slowly and where to pause; and M. Lorman having wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, she began gossiping with Augustin. When they differed, she appealed to Raoul, and agreed prettily with his decision. Augustin succumbed to her influence at once, and lost all his sulkiness. He had played at the Odéon, and he knew what art was. M. Sarcey had said of him that he would do well; and M. Regnier had been pleased to advise him. He told Mademoiselle this, and he promised to bring to her a copy of the Temps that she might read the great critic's words for herself. She ended the conversation with coquettish abruptness, and begged Raoul to kneel beside her chair a moment, and follow her pencil as she marked the manuscript and explained what her marks were intended to mean.
When Augustin had gone, she leaned back to where M. Lorman stood waiting behind her.
"Beg of your friend," she said, "to be my chevalier and to protect me from the dreadful people while I look at the sea."
Then at once, turning with a pleading glance towards Raoul, she added with comic earnestness:
"Have mercy on me, Monsieur, I beseech you."
M. Lorman looked uncomfortable. There was an awkward pause. Then Raoul stammered a fit reply and reddened, and, as he packed his violin away, he muttered angrily: "Shall I never rid myself of this childish sensitiveness? It is a shame to me that an accident has deformed me."
As Mademoiselle came from her room she whispered wickedly to M. Lorman:
"You may prepare your forfeit."
But he shook his head and laughed.