and cries of "Hush! hush! sit down!"

They were obliged to resume their seats. Risler, too, was beginning to
be disturbed.

"I know that tune," he said to himself. "Where have I heard it?"

A thunder of applause and an exclamation from Planus made him raise his
eyes.

"Come, come, let us go," said the cashier, trying to lead him away.

But it was too late.

Risler had already seen his wife come forward to the front of the stage
and curtsey to the audience with a ballet-dancer's smile.

She wore a white gown, as on the night of the ball; but her whole costume
was much less rich and shockingly immodest.

The dress was barely caught together at the shoulders; her hair floated
in a blond mist low over her eyes, and around her neck was a necklace of
pearls too large to be real, alternated with bits of tinsel. Delobelle
was right: the Bohemian life was better suited to her. Her beauty had
gained an indefinably reckless expression, which was its most
characteristic feature, and made her a perfect type of the woman who has
escaped from all restraint, placed herself at the mercy of every
accident, and is descending stage by stage to the lowest depths of the
Parisian hell, from which nothing is powerful enough to lift her and
restore her to the pure air and the light.