“He’s like the little pea that the conjurers call ‘Muscade.’ You think you have your finger on it, but you never have.”
“Quaint children, aren’t they?” the Marquise said carelessly, obviously thinking of far other things, and not for an instant lowering her eyes from Saval’s face.
“I’m not quaint, I’m frank,” said Yvette angrily. “I like Muscade, and he’s always leaving me; it’s so annoying.”
Servigny made her a low bow.
“I’ll never leave you again, Mam’zelle, day or night.”
She made a gesture of alarm.
“Oh, no, that would never do! In the daytime, by all means, but at night you’d be in the way.”
“Why?” he asked imprudently.
With calm audacity she replied:
“Because you couldn’t possibly look so nice with your clothes off.”
“What a dreadful thing to say!” exclaimed the Marquise, without appearing in the least excited. “You can’t possibly be so innocent as all that.”
“I entirely agree with you,” added Servigny in a jesting tone.
Yvette looked rather hurt, and said haughtily:
“You have just been guilty of blatant vulgarity; you have permitted yourself far too much of that sort of thing lately.”
She turned her back on him, and shouted:
“Chevalier, come and defend me; I have just been insulted.”
A thin, dark man came slowly towards them.
“Which is the culprit?” he asked, forcing a smile.
She nodded towards Servigny.
“That’s the man; but all the same I like him better than all of you put together; he’s not so boring.”
The Chevalier Valréali bowed.
“We do what we can. Perhaps we are not so brilliant, but we are at least as devoted.”
A tall, stout man with grey whiskers and a deep voice was just leaving.
“Your servant, Mademoiselle Yvette,” he said as he passed.
“Ah, it’s Monsieur de Belvigne,” she exclaimed, and turning to Saval, she introduced him.
“Another candidate for my favour, tall, fat, rich, and stupid. That’s how I like them. He’s a real Field-marshal—one of those who hold the door open at restaurants. But you’re taller than he is. Now what am I going to christen you? I know! I shall call you Rhodes Junior, after the colossus who must have been your father. But you two must have really interesting things to discuss, far above our heads, so good night to you.”
She ran across to the orchestra, and asked them to play a quadrille.
Madame Obardi’s attention seemed to be wandering.
“You’re always teasing her,” she said softly. “You’re spoiling the child’s disposition and teaching her a number of bad habits.”
“Then you haven’t finished her education?” he replied.
She seemed not to understand, and continued to smile benevolently.
But observing the approach of a solemn gentleman whose breast was covered with orders, she ran up to him:
“Ah, Prince, how delightful!”
Servigny took Saval’s arm once more and led him away, saying:
“There’s my last serious rival, Prince Kravalow. Isn’t she a glorious creature?”
“They’re both glorious,” replied Saval. “The mother’s quite good enough for me.”
Servigny bowed.
“She’s yours for the asking, my dear.”
The dancers elbowed them as they took their places for the quadrille, couple by couple, in two lines facing one another.
“Now let’s go and watch the Greeks for a bit,” said Servigny.
They entered the gambling-room.
Round each table a circle of men stood watching. There was very little conversation; sometimes a little chink of gold, thrown down on the cloth or hastily mixed up, mingled its faint metallic murmur with the murmur of the players, as though the voice of gold were making itself heard amid the human voices.
The men were decorated with various orders and strange ribbons; and their diverse features all wore the same severe expression. They were more easily distinguished by their beards.
The stiff American with his horseshoe beard, the haughty Englishman with a hairy fan spread over his chest, the Spaniard with a black fleece reaching right up to his eyes, the Roman with the immense moustache bequeathed to Italy by Victor Emmanuel, the Austrian with his whiskers and clean-shaven chin, a Russian general whose lip was armed with two spears of twisted hair, Frenchmen with gay moustaches—they displayed the imaginative genius of every barber in the world.
“Aren’t you going to play?” asked Servigny.
“No; what about you?”
“I never play here. Would you like to go now? We’ll come back one day when it’s quieter. There are too many people here today; there’s nothing to be done.”
“Yes, let us go.”
They disappeared through a doorway which led into the hall.
As soon as they were out in the street, Servigny asked:
“Well, what do you think of it all?”
“It’s certainly interesting. But I like the women better than the men.”
“Good Lord, yes! Those women are the best hunting in the country. Don’t you agree with me that love exhales from them like the perfumes from a barber’s shop? These are positively the only houses where one can really get one’s money’s worth. And what expert lovers they are! What artists! Have you ever eaten cakes made by a baker? They look so good, and they have no flavour at all. Well, the love of an ordinary woman always reminds me of baker’s pastry, whereas the love you get from women like the Marquise Obardi—that really is love! Oh, they can make cakes all right, can these confectioners. You have to pay them twopence halfpenny for what you would get anywhere else for a penny, that’s the only thing.”
“Who is the man running the place at present?” asked Saval.
Servigny shrugged his shoulders to express utter ignorance.
“I have no idea,” he said. “The last I knew certainly was an English peer, but he left three months ago. At the moment she must be living on the community, on the gambling and the gamblers, very likely, for she has her whims. But it’s an understood thing, isn’t it, that we are dining with her at Bougival on Saturday? There’s more freedom in the country, and I shall end by finding out what notions Yvette has in her head!”
“I ask for nothing better,” replied Saval. “I’m not doing anything that day.”
As they returned down the Champs Élysées, under the embattled stars, they passed a couple lying on
