“At the far end, dancing; that is the temple of Innocence. There are displayed the offspring, if we may believe it, of the ladies in here. Even lawful unions would be smiled on! There is the future, the hope … of our nights. And there, too, are the strangest exhibits in this museum of diseased morals, the young girls whose souls are double-jointed, like the limbs of little clowns who had acrobats for parents. Let us go and see them.”
He bowed to right and left, a debonair figure, scattering pretty speeches and running his rapid, expert glance over every pair of bare shoulders whose possessor he recognised.
At the far end of the second room an orchestra was playing a waltz; they stopped at the door and watched. Some fifteen couples were dancing, the men gravely, their partners with fixed smiles on their lips. Like their mothers, they showed a great deal of bare skin; since the bodices of some were supported only by a narrow ribbon round the upper part of the arm, there were occasional glimpses of a dark shadow under the armpits.
Suddenly a tall girl started up and crossed the room, pushing the dancers aside, her absurdly long train gathered in her left hand. She ran with the short quick steps affected by women in a crowd, and cried out:
“Ah, there’s Muscade. How are you, Muscade!”
Her face was glowing with life, and radiant with happiness. She had the white, golden-gleaming skin which goes with auburn hair. Her forehead was loaded with the sheaf of flaming, gleaming tresses that burdened her still slender neck.
She seemed made for motion as her mother was for speech, so natural, gracious, and simple were her movements. A sense of spiritual delight and physical contentment sprang from the mere sight of her as she walked, moved, bent her head or raised her arm.
“Ah, Muscade,” she repeated. “How are you, Muscade?”
Servigny shook her hand vigorously, as though she were a man, and said:
“This is my friend, Baron Saval, Mam’zelle Yvette.”
She greeted the newcomer, then stared at him.
“How do you do? Are you always as tall as this?”
“Oh, no, Mam’zelle,” answered Servigny, in the mocking tone he used to conceal his uneasiness in her presence. “He has put on his largest size today to please your mother, who likes quantity.”
“Oh, very well, then,” replied the girl in a seriocomic voice. “But when you come for my sake, please be a little smaller; I like the happy medium. Muscade here is about my size,” and she offered him her little hand.
“Are you going to dance, Muscade?” she asked. “Let’s dance this waltz.”
Servigny made no answer, but with a sudden swift movement put his arm round her waist, and away they went like a whirlwind.
They danced faster than any, turning and twirling with wild abandon, so tightly clasped that they looked like one. Their bodies held upright and their legs almost motionless, it was as though they were spun round by an invisible machine hidden under their feet. They seemed unwearying. One by one the other couples dropped out till they were left alone, waltzing on and on. They looked as though they no longer knew where they were or what they were doing, as though they were far away from the ballroom, in ecstasy. The band played steadily on, their eyes fixed on this bewitched pair; everyone was watching, and there was a burst of applause when at last they stopped.
She was rather flushed; her eyes were no longer frank, but strangely troubled, burning yet timid, unnaturally blue, with pupils unnaturally black.
Servigny was drunk with giddiness, and leaned against a door to recover his balance.
“You have a poor head, Muscade,” she said. “You don’t stand it as well as I do.”
He smiled his nervous smile and looked at her with hungry eyes, a savage lust in his eyes and the curve of his lips.
She continued to stand in front of the young man, her throat heaving as she regained her breath.
“Sometimes,” she continued, “you look just like a cat about to make a spring. Give me your arm, and let us go and find your friend.”
Without speaking he offered her his arm, and they crossed the large room.
Saval was alone no longer; the Marquise Obardi had joined him, and was talking of trivial things, bewitching him with her maddening voice. Gazing intently at him, she seemed to utter words very different from those on her lips, words that came from the secret places of her heart. At the sight of Servigny she smiled and, turning to him, said:
“Have you heard, my dear Duc, that I’ve just taken a villa at Bougival for a couple of months? Of course you’ll come and see me; you’ll bring your friend, won’t you? I’m going down there on Monday, so will you both come and dine there next Saturday, and stay over the weekend?”
Servigny turned sharply to Yvette. She was smiling a serene, tranquil smile, and with an air of bland assurance said:
“Of course Muscade will come to dinner on Saturday; there’s no need to ask him. We shall have all kinds of fun in the country.”
He fancied that he saw a vague promise in her smile, and an unwonted decision in her voice.
The Marquise thereupon raised her great black eyes to Saval’s face, and said:
“And you also, Baron?”
There was nothing equivocal about her smile.
He bowed.
“I shall be only too pleased.”
“We’ll scandalise the neighbourhood—won’t we, Muscade?—and drive my admirers wild with rage,” murmured Yvette, glancing, with a malice that was either candid or assured, towards the group of men who watched them from the other side of the room.
“To your heart’s content, Mam’zelle,” replied Servigny; by way of emphasising the intimate nature of his friendship with her, he never called her “mademoiselle.”
“Why does Mademoiselle Yvette always call my friend Servigny ‘Muscade’?” asked Saval.
The girl
