"You know the effect of fair hair and blue eyes in the soft,
voluptuous decorous dance? Such a girl does not knock audaciously at
your heart, like the dark-haired damsels that seem to say after the
fashion of Spanish beggars, 'Your money or your life; give me five
francs or take my contempt!' These insolent and somewhat dangerous
beauties may find favor in the sight of many men, but to my thinking
the blonde that has the good fortune to look extremely tender and
yielding, while foregoing none of her rights to scold, to tease, to
use unmeasured language, to be jealous without grounds, to do
anything, in short, that makes woman adorable,--the fair-haired girl,
I say, will always be more sure to marry than the ardent brunette.
Firewood is dear, you see.

"Isaure, white as an Alsacienne (she first saw the light at
Strasbourg, and spoke German with a slight and very agreeable French
accent), danced to admiration. Her feet, omitted on the passport,
though they really might have found a place there under the heading
Distinguishing Signs, were remarkable for their small size, and for
that particular something which old-fashioned dancing masters used to
call flic-flac, a something that put you in mind of Mlle. Mars'
agreeable delivery, for all the Muses are sisters, and the dancer and
poet alike have their feet upon the earth. Isaure's feet spoke lightly
and swiftly with a clearness and precision which augured well for
things of the heart. '_Elle a duc flic-flac_,' was old Marcel's highest
word of praise, and old Marcel was the dancing master that deserved
the epithet of 'the Great.' People used to say 'the Great Marcel,' as
they said 'Frederick the Great,' and in Frederick's time."

"Did Marcel compose any ballets?" inquired Finot.