He looked at her in astonishment.

"I? I was with my sister."

"Oh!"

On the stage, Marie-Claire, hanging upon Durville's neck, was
exclaiming:

"Go! Victorious or defeated, in good or evil fortune, your glory will be
equally great. Come what may, I shall know how to show myself the wife
of a hero."

"That will do, Madame Marie-Claire!" said Pradel.

Just at that moment Chevalier made his entry, and immediately the
author, tearing his hair, let loose a flood of imprecations:

"Do you call that an entry? It's a tumble, a catastrophe, a cataclysm!
Ye gods! A meteor, an aerolith, a bit of the moon falling on to the
stage would be less horribly disastrous! I will take off my play!
Chevalier, come in again, my good fellow!"

The artist who had designed the costumes, Michel, a fair young man with
a mystic's beard, was seated in the first row, on the arm of a stall. He
leaned over and whispered into the ear of Roger, the scene-painter:

"And to think it's the fifty-sixth time that he's dropped on Chevalier
with the same fury!"