clasping her little gloved hands entreatingly, like a child begging for
a toy, "persuade Monsieur Vaudrey to accept this invitation of mine and
you will be a love, you understand, Lissac, a love!"

But Guy had already risen and with a touch of his thumb snapping out his
crush hat, he opened the door of the box, saying to Sabine as he did so:

"Take notice that I ask nothing in return for this favor!"

Madame Marsy began to laugh.

"Ah!" she cried, "that is discreet, but I am willing to subscribe to any
condition!"

"Selika is cold beside you," said Lissac as he disappeared through the
open doorway, "I will bring you your minister in ten minutes."

Sabine waited nervously. The curtain had just fallen on the third act.
The manager's box was empty. Guy would doubtless be obliged to rejoin
Vaudrey, and neither the minister nor his friend would be seen again.
Just then some one knocked at the door of the box. Monsieur Gerson,
overcome by fatigue, and weary as only a man can be who is dragged
against his will night after night to some place of amusement, was
dozing in the rear of the box. At a word from his wife he got up and
hastened to open the door. It proved to be an artist, an old friend of
Philippe Marsy, who came to invite Sabine to his studio to "admire" _his
Envoy_ that he had just finished for the Salon. Sabine received him
graciously, and promised him somewhat stiffly that she would do so. She
tapped impatiently with her fan upon her fingers as the orchestra began
to play the prelude to the fourth act. It was quite certain that Lissac