At first she could not recognise any one as she looked round upon Turks,
clowns, Indians, the tinselled, sequined, beaded, ragged flutter of the
room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer,
clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval,
who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the
swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that
her dress was as beautiful as she had hoped it might be, but what was
the use of its beauty if Julien should be missing? And, looking over
Duval's head, she tried to see through the crowd.

Suddenly she saw him, dressed in the white uniform of a Russian,
standing by a buttress of the wall. His uniform had a faint yellowish
colour, as if it had been laid away for many years against this
evening's dance; the light caught his knees and long boots, but the
shadow of the buttress crept over his face, turned from her towards a
further door. On his head he wore a white hat of curling sheep's wool,
which made him seem fantastically tall.

When Fanny had surveyed him, from the tip of his lit hat to his lit
feet, she was content to leave him in his shadowed corner, and turned
willingly to dance with Duval. The little man offered an arm to hold
her, and, as he came nearer to her, his feet pressed the bottom ring of
wire about her skirt, and the whole bell of flowers and frills swung
backwards and stood out obliquely behind her.

Presently the Jew boy, Reherrey, detached himself from the others and
came out to stand by her and flatter her. He had wound the black stuff
that he had bought three days before so cleverly round his slim body
that he seemed no fatter than a lacquered hairpin. The cynical flattery