between Jory's lips, she strode off with her arms raised, and making a
very comical grimace; in such wise that when the gentleman reappeared,
looking sedate and somewhat pale, he found her in her former seat,
still looking at the same engraving in the newspaper. The whole scene
had been acted so quickly, and with such jaunty drollery, that the two
sergeants who sat nearby, good-natured fellows both of them, almost
died of laughter as they shuffled their cards afresh.

In fact, Irma had taken them all by storm. Sandoz declared that her
name of Becot was very well suited for a novel; Claude asked whether
she would consent to pose for a sketch; while Mahoudeau already
pictured her as a Paris gamin, a statuette that would be sure to sell.
She soon went off, however, and behind the gentleman's back she wafted
kisses to the whole party, a shower of kisses which quite upset the
impressionable Jory.

It was five o'clock, and the band ordered some more beer. Some of the
usual customers had taken possession of the adjacent tables, and these
philistines cast sidelong glances at the artists' corner, glances in
which contempt was curiously mingled with a kind of uneasy deference.
The artists were indeed well known; a legend was becoming current
respecting them. They themselves were now talking on common-place
subjects: about the heat, the difficulty of finding room in the
omnibus to the Odeon, and the discovery of a wine-shop where real meat
was obtainable. One of them wanted to start a discussion about a
number of idiotic pictures that had lately been hung in the Luxembourg
Museum; but there was only one opinion on the subject, that the
pictures were not worth their frames. Thereupon they left off
conversing; they smoked, merely exchanging a word or a significant
smile now and then.