ones to rob us of it! Lissac, however, was not one of these envious
ones.

"Let us go to Madame Marsy's box, my dear Guy," said Sulpice. "The more
so because if she at all resembles her portrait at the last Salon, she
must be lovely indeed."

He left the greenroom, leaning on the arm of Lissac, after throwing a
glance backward, however, at the girls whirling about there, and where
in the presence of their stiff, ancient superiors, the young
sub-prefects still hid their faces behind their opera hats. Granet with
Molina went to take leave of Vaudrey, leaving little Marie Launay
smiling artlessly because the financier, the _Tumbler_, had said to her,
in drawing down her eyelids with his coarse finger: "Will you close your
periwinkles--you _kid_?"

"Your Excellency," the banker had said, cajoling his Excellency with his
meaning glance, "I am always at your orders you know."

"To-morrow, at the Prisons' Commission, Monsieur le Ministre," said
Granet. And amid salutations on every side Vaudrey withdrew, smiling and
good-humored as usual.

In order to reach the box, Vaudrey had to cross the stage. The new scene
was set. Buddhist temples with their grotesque shapes and huge statues
stood out against a background of vivid blue sky, and on the canvas
beyond, great pink flowers glowed amid refreshing verdure. Over all fell
a soft fairy-like light from an electric lamp, casting on the floor a
fantastic gleam, soft and clear as the rays of the moon. Sulpice smiled
as he passed beneath this flood of light and saw his shadow projected