the masks of convention; and the Turk, Mourad Bey, who has sat the whole evening without a word in the depths of an armchair, is now gesticulating in the front row with open nostrils and staring eyes. [Illustration: Seem as easy as the hovering of a dragon-fly 120] In the midst of the wild shouts of applause the girl springs and leaps with so harmonious a concealment of the muscular working of her frame, that her dance might seem as easy as the hovering of a dragon-fly, but for the few drops on her firm rounded neck and the smile, forced, tense, and almost painful, at the corner of her mouth, which betray the exhausting effort of the exquisite little creature, Paul Astier, who did not care for dancing, had stayed on the terrace to smoke. The applause and the thin sounds of the piano, audible in the distance, made an accompaniment to his reflections, which took shape little by little, even as his outward eyes, growing accustomed to the dark, made out by degrees in the garden the trunks of the trees and their quivering leaves, and far away at the end the delicate tracery of an old-fashioned trellis against the wall. It was so hard to succeed; one must hold on so long to reach the desired point, always close at hand and always receding. Why was it that Colette seemed every moment on the point of falling into his arms, and yet when he went back he had to begin again from the beginning? It looked as if in his absence some one for amusement pulled down his work. Who was it? It was that dead fellow, confound him! He ought to be at her side from morning to night; but how could he, with the perpetual necessity of running after money? There came a light step, a soft sound of velvet. It was his mother looking for him. Why did he not come into the drawing-room with all the rest? She leaned over the balustrade beside him and wanted to know what he was thinking about. ‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’ But further pressed he came out with it. Well, the fact was--the fact was--that he had had enough of starving. Dun, dun, dun. One hole stopped and another opened. He would not stand any more of it, so there! From the drawing-room came loud exclamations and wild laughter, together with the expressionless voice of Valère, directing the dancer in the imitation of an old-fashioned ballet figure. ‘How much do you want?’ whispered the mother trembling. She had never seen him like this before. ‘No, it’s no use; it’s more than you could possibly manage.’ ‘How much?’ she asked again. ‘Eight hundred.’ And the agent must have it tomorrow by five o’clock, or else he would take possession. There would be a sale and all sorts of horrors. Sooner than that--and here he ground his cigar between his teeth as he said the last words--‘better make a hole in my frontispiece.’