The company, a little silent at first, was becoming somewhat more
animated, when a head-waiter, correct, and full of a sense of his own
importance, entered the salon, holding out before him with both hands a
large tray covered with slender glasses filled with a beverage called
"the cardinal's drink," composed of champagne, Bordeaux, and slices of
pineapple. The method of blending these materials was a professional
secret of the Freres-Provencaux.

Instantly the guests were on their feet, and Heloise, who had been served
first, proposed that they should drink the health of the Marquis, but,
prompted by one of her facetious impulses, instead of lifting the glass
to her own lips, she presented it to those of the waiter, and, raising
her arm, compelled him to swallow the contents. Encouraged by laughter
and applause, she presented to him a second glass, then a third; and the
unhappy man drank obediently, not being able to push away the glasses
without endangering the safety of the tray he carried.

Fanny Dorville interceded in vain for the victim; the inexorable duenna
had already seized a fourth glass, and the final catastrophe would have
been infallibly brought about, had not providence intervened in the
person of the call-boy, who, thrusting his head through the half-open
doorway, cried, shrilly:

"Ladies, they are about to begin!"

The two actresses hastened away, escorted by Andre Desvanneaux, a modern
Tartufe, who, though married, was seen everywhere, as much at home behind
the scenes as in church.

Coffee and liqueurs were then served in a salon adjoining the large