And yet Laurent said nothing to those girls that all the world might not have overheard. He chattered away, amused by their prattle, and answered them like a well-bred man. They were empty-headed creatures, and more than once he yawned, making a slight effort to conceal it. Nevertheless, he remained there, caring little whether he was seen of all men in such company, letting them pay court to him, yawning with fatigue and not with real _ennui_, absent-minded but affable, and talking to those chance companions as if they were women of the best society, almost dear and genuine friends, associated with pleasant memories of joys which one can avow. This lasted fully a quarter of an hour. Thérèse still held her place. Laurent's back was turned to her. The bench on which he was sitting stood in the recess of a closed glass door. When the groups wandering along the outer corridors stopped against that door, the black coats and dominos made an opaque background and the glass became a sort of black mirror, in which Thérèse's face was reflected unknown to her. Laurent glanced at her several times without thinking of her; but eventually the immobility of that masked face made him uneasy, and he said to his companions, pointing her out to them in the black mirror: "Don't you call that mask ghastly?" "Do we frighten you, pray?" "No, not you; I know what sort of a nose you have under that bit of satin; but to have a face that you can't divine, that you don't know, glaring at you like that! I am going away, I have had enough of it." "That is to say," they retorted, "that you have had enough of us." "No," he said, "I have had enough of the ball. It's stifling here. Don't you want to come to see the snow fall? I am going to the Bois de Boulogne." "Why, that's enough to kill you!" "Ah! yes. Is there such a thing as death? Are you coming?" "Faith, no!" "Who wants to go to the Bois de Boulogne in a domino with me?" he asked, raising his voice. A group of black figures swooped down upon him like a flock of bats. "How much is it worth?" said one. "Will you paint my portrait?" said another. "Are we to go on foot or on horseback?" queried a third. "A hundred francs a head," he replied, "just to walk about in the snow by moonlight. I will follow you at a distance. I want to see the effect. How many of you are there?" he added, after a moment. "Ten! that's hardly enough. But no matter, off we go!" Three remained behind, saying: "He hasn't a sou. We shall get inflammation of the lungs, and that will be all." "You stay behind?" he said. "Seven left! Bravo! a cabalistic number, the seven deadly sins! _Vive Dieu_! I was afraid I should be bored, but there's an idea that saves me." "Bah!" said Thérèse, "a mere artist's whim! He remembers that he is a painter. Nothing is lost."