There was a deafening noise, a confused mass in which she at first only distinguished flying skirts and black legs, footing and turning. Monsieur de Saffré's voice cried out: "Change your ladies! change your ladies!" And the couples passed by amid a fine yellow dust; each gentleman, after three or four turns in the waltz, threw his partner into the arms of his neighbour, who, in turn, threw him his. Baroness de Meinhold, in her costume as the Emerald, fell from the hands of the Count de Chibray into the hands of Monsieur Simpson; he caught her as he could by a shoulder, while the tip of his gloves glided under her dress body. Countess Vanska, very red and making her coral drops jingle, went with a bound from the chest of Monsieur de Saffré on to the chest of the Duke de Rozan, whom she entwined and compelled to pirouette for five turns, when she hung herself on the hips of Monsieur Simpson who had just thrown the Emerald to the leader of the cotillon. And Madame Teissière, Madame Daste, Madame de Lauwerens, shining like large living jewels, with the fair pallor of the Topaz, the soft blue of the Turquoise, the fiery blue of the Sapphire, abandoned themselves for a minute, vaulted under the extended wrist of a waltzer, then started off again, came frontwards or backwards into a fresh embrace, visiting one after the other all the masculine embraces of the drawing-room. However Madame d'Espanet had, in full view of the orchestra, succeeded in catching hold of Madame Haffner as she passed by, and now waltzed with her, refusing to let go her hold. Gold and Silver danced lovingly together. Renée then understood this whirling of skirts, this stamping of legs. Standing on a lower surface she could see the fury of the feet, the patent-leather boots and white ankles mingling pell-mell. At intervals it seemed to her as if a gust of wind were about to blow off the dresses. The bare shoulders, the bare arms, the bare heads which flew past and revolved, now seized hold of, now thrown off, and again caught at the end of the gallery where the waltz of the orchestra grew madder, where the red hangings seemed thrown into a transport amid the final fever of the ball, appeared to her like the tumultuous image of her own life, of her nudities and abandonments. And she experienced such a pang, at the thought that Maxime, to take the hunchback in his arms, had just cast her there, on the spot where they had loved each other, that she dreamt of plucking a stalk of the Tanghinia which grazed her cheek, and of chewing it till the sap was exhausted. But she was cowardly, and she remained in front of the plant shivering under the fur which her hands drew over her with a tight clutch, and a great gesture of terrified shame. CHAPTER VII.