in her hand a long sheet of paper.

She shook, as if embarrassed by it, the broad necklace of large
imitation pearls that danced on her fine neck and fell on her
undeveloped bosom; and looking in search of some one among the crowd of
girls, cried out from a distance to a plump little brunette who was
talking and laughing within a circle of dress-coats at the other end of
the room:

"Eh! Anna, you have not subscribed yet!"

The brunette, freeing herself unceremoniously enough from her living
madrigals, came running lightly up to Marie Launay, who held out towards
her an aluminum pencil-case and the sheet of paper.

"What the devil is that?" asked Molina.

"Let us go and see," said Granet.

"Would it not be an indiscretion on our part?" asked Vaudrey, half
seriously.

The financier, however, was by this time at the side of the two pretty
girls, and asked the blonde what the paper contained, the names on which
her companion was spelling out.

Marie Launay, a lovely girl with little ringlets of fair hair curling
low down upon her forehead, smiled like a pretty, innocent and still
timid child, under the luring glances of the fat man, and glancing with
an expression of virgin innocence at Sulpice and Granet, who were