eyes towards the friend who was present, and who was gazing at her with
ecstasy, striving to accentuate the slavish submissiveness of his
attitude.

"You look delicious!" he murmured; "that gown is a marvel."

Seguin laughed and twitted Santerre on his obsequiousness towards women.
Valentine, mollified by the compliment, soon recovered her birdlike
gayety, and such free and easy conversation ensued between the trio that
Mathieu felt both stupefied and embarrassed. In fact, he would have gone
off at once had it not been for his desire to obtain from his landlord a
promise to repair the pavilion properly.

"Wait another moment," Valentine at last said to her husband; "I told
Celeste to bring the children, so that we might kiss them before
starting."

Mathieu wished to profit by this fresh delay, and sought to renew his
request; but Valentine was already rattling on again, talking of dining
at the most disreputable restaurant possible, and asking if at the first
performance which they were to attend they would see all the horrors
which had been hissed at the dress rehearsal the night before. She
appeared like a pupil of the two men between whom she stood. She even
went further in her opinions than they did, displaying the wildest
pessimism, and such extreme views on literature and art that they
themselves could not forbear laughing. Wagner was greatly over-estimated,
in her opinion; she asked for invertebrate music, the free harmony of the
passing wind. As for her moral views, they were enough to make one
shudder. She had got past the argumentative amours of Ibsen's idiotic,
rebellious heroines, and had now reached the theory of pure intangible