The names of most of these Society women and clubmen were familiar to the poet from his having read them, with childish avidity, in the fashionable intelligence published by the newspapers for the edification of young _bourgeois_ dreaming of high life. He had formed such grand and entirely false notions of the 'upper ten' of Paris--a little world of wealthy cosmopolitans rather than French aristocrats--that a feeling of both rapture and disenchantment came over him at the realisation of one of his earliest dreams. The splendour of his surroundings charmed him, and his success soothed his professional vanity. There were smiles for him on such tempting lips and kind looks in such glorious eyes. But though all this was very flattering, it overwhelmed him with a sense of shyness, and, whilst the crowd of strange faces struck a kind of terror into his soul, the commonplace praise destroyed his illusions. What makes Society--of whatever class it be--utterly insupportable to many artists is the fact that they appear in it on rare occasions only, in order to be lionised, and that they expect something extraordinary, whilst those who really belong to Society move in the atmosphere of a drawing-room with the natural ease that accompanies a daily habit. The indescribable feeling of disenchantment, the daze of excitement produced by endless introductions, the intoxication of flattery and the anguish of timidity all made René eager to find his friend. Claude had disappeared, but the poet's eyes fell upon Colette, who, having come down from the stage in her bright-coloured dress of the last century and her powdered hair, formed a striking contrast in colour to the black coats of the men by whom she was surrounded. She, too, was evidently embarrassed--a feeling betrayed by her somewhat nervous smile, by the look of defiance in her eyes, and the rapid opening and shutting of her fan. With her it was the embarrassment of an actress suddenly transported beyond her sphere, proud of, and yet distressed by, the attentions she commands. She met René with a smile that showed real pleasure in finding one of her own set, and breaking off her conversation with the owner of a terra-cotta complexion, who could be no other than Claude's rival, Salvaney, she cried, 'Ah! here is my author!--Well,' she added, shaking hands with the poet, 'I suppose you are quite satisfied? How well everything has gone off! Come, Salvaney, compliment Monsieur Vincy, even if you don't understand anything about it. And your friend Larcher,' she went on, 'has he disappeared? Tell him for me that he nearly made me die of laughing on the stage. He was wearing a love-lock and his weeping-willow air. For whom was he acting his Antony?'