Then she fixed her brilliant eyes upon the Colossus who had just
been introduced to her. She had just the slightest down on her upper
lip, a suspicion of a mustache, which seemed darker when she spoke.
There was a pleasant odor about her, pervading, intoxicating, some
perfume of America or of the Indies. Other people came in,
marquesses, counts or princes. She said to Servigny, with the
graciousness of a mother: "You will find my daughter in the other
parlor. Have a good time, gentlemen, the house is yours."

And she left them to go to those who had come later, throwing at
Saval that smiling and fleeting glance which women use to show that
they are pleased. Servigny grasped his friend's arm.

"I will pilot you," said he. "In this parlor where we now are,
women, the temples of the fleshly, fresh or otherwise. Bargains as
good as new, even better, for sale or on lease. At the right,
gaming, the temple of money. You understand all about that. At the
lower end, dancing, the temple of innocence, the sanctuary, the
market for young girls. They are shown off there in every light.
Even legitimate marriages are tolerated. It is the future, the hope,
of our evenings. And the most curious part of this museum of moral
diseases are these young girls whose souls are out of joint, just
like the limbs of the little clowns born of mountebanks. Come and
look at them."

He bowed, right and left, courteously, a compliment on his lips,
sweeping each low-gowned woman whom he knew with the look of an
expert.

The musicians, at the end of the second parlor, were playing a