“Oh, I will give them to you--here. I know them by heart. I have read and reread them. It is that which hurts one, when one loves. But I have suffered other tortures. When I think that it was I--” He stopped himself. He choked. “I who had to furnish fuel for your flames, warm this frozen lover, send him to you ardent and young--Ah! he has devoured my pearls--I might refuse over and over again, he was always taking them. At last I was mad. You wish to burn, wretched woman. Well, burn, then!” Paul rose to his feet in terror. Was he going to hear the confession of a crime? But the shame of hearing more was not inflicted on him. A violent knocking, this time on his own door, warned him that his _calesino_ was ready. “Is the French gentleman ready?” In the next room there was silence, then a whisper.--There had been some one near who had heard them.--Paul de Gery hurried downstairs. He must get out of this room to escape the weight of so much infamy. As the post-chaise swayed, he saw among the common white curtains, which float at all the windows in the south, a pale figure with the hair of a goddess, and great burning eyes fixed on him. But a glance at Aline’s portrait quickly dispelled this disturbing vision, and forever cured of his old love, he travelled until evening through the magic landscape with the lovely bride of the _dejeuner_, who carried in the folds of her modest robe and mantle all the violets of Bordighera. THE FIRST NIGHT OF “REVOLT” “Take your places for the first act!” The cry of the stage-manager, standing with his hand raised to his mouth to form a trumpet, at the foot of the staircase behind the scenes, echoes under the roof, rises and rolls along, to be lost in the depths of corridors full of the noise of doors banging, of hasty steps, of desperate calls to the _coiffeur_ and the dressers; while there appear one by one on the landings of the various floors, slow and majestic, without moving their heads for fear of disturbing the least detail of their make-up, all the personages of the first act of _Revolt_, in elegant modern ball costumes, with the creaking of new shoes, the silken rustle of the trains, the jingling of rich bracelets pushed up the arm while gloves are being buttoned. All these people seem excited, nervous, pale beneath their paint, and under the skilfully prepared satin-like surface of the shoulders, tremors flutter like shadows. Dry-mouthed, they speak little. The least nervous, while affecting to smile, have in their eyes and voice the hesitation that marks an absent mind--that apprehension of the battle behind the foot-lights which is ever one of the most powerful attractions of the comedian’s art, its piquancy, its freshness.