"To you alone, at once," repeated Renée. "Go then, Maxime," said Louise, with her undefinable look. "At the same time you might try to find my father. I lose him at every party." He rose up, he tried to stop the young woman in the middle of the dining-room by asking her what she could have of so urgent a nature to say to him. But she resumed between her teeth: "Follow me, or I shall speak out before every one!" He turned very pale and followed her with the docility of a beaten animal. She thought that Baptiste was looking at her; but at this moment she cared nought for the valet's clear gaze! At the door, the cotillon detained her for the third time. "Wait," she murmured. "These fools will never have done." Monsieur de Saffré was placing the Duke de Rozan with his back against the wall, in one corner of the drawing-room, beside he dining-room door. He stationed a lady in front of him, then a gentleman back to back with the lady, then another lady in front of the gentleman, and this in a line, couple by couple, forming as it were a long serpent. As the dancers talked together and tarried behind: "Come, ladies," he cried, "to your places for the 'columns.'" They came, and "the columns" were formed. The indecency of finding oneself thus caught, pressed between two men, leaning against the back of one of them, with the chest of the other in front of one, made the ladies very gay. The tips of the women's bosoms touched the facings of the men's dress-coats, the gentlemen's legs disappeared amid the ladies' skirts; and whenever any sudden merriment made a woman's head lean forward, the moustaches in front were obliged to draw back, so as not to carry matters as far as kissing. At one moment a joker must have given a slight push, for the line closed up, the dress-coats plunged deeper into the skirts, there were little cries and laughs, coughs which did not end. The Baroness de Meinhold was heard saying, "But you are stifling me, sir; don't squeeze me so hard!" this seemed so funny, and gave the whole line such an attack of hilarity, that the shaken "columns" staggered, clashed together and leaned upon one another to avoid falling. Monsieur de Saffré waited with his hands raised ready to clap. Then he clapped. At this signal every one abruptly turned round. The couples who were face to face took each other by the waist, and the file dispersed waltzing round the room. The only one left was the poor Duke de Rozan, who on turning round found his nose against the wall. He was derided by everybody. "Come," said Renée to Maxime. The orchestra was still playing the waltz. This soft music, the monotonous rhythm of which at last became insipid, increased the young woman's exasperation. She gained the little drawing-room holding Maxime by the hand; and pushing him to the staircase which led to the dressing-room: "Go up," she ordered.