to
flock in, each for his aperitif, the cafe was comparatively cool.

A few women's frocks relieved the picture with discreet or joyous shades
of white and pink. Ambroise was diligent and served his regular
customers, the men who grumbled if any one occupied their favourite
corners. Absinthe nicely iced, dominoes, the evening papers--these he
brought as he welcomed familiar faces. But his thoughts were not his
own, and his pose when not in service was listless, even bored. Would
_she_ return that evening with the same crowd--was the idea that had
taken possession of his brain. He was very timid in the presence of
women, and it diverted the waiters to see him blush when he waited upon
the gorgeous birds that thronged the aviary at night, making its walls
echo with their chattering, quarrels, laughter. This provincial, modest,
sensitive, the only child of old-fashioned parents, was stupefied and
shocked in the presence of the over-decorated and under-dressed
creatures, daubed like idols, who began to flock in the cafe, with or
without escorts, after eleven o'clock every night in the year. He knew
them all by name. He knew their histories. He could detect at a glance
whether they were unhappy or merely depressed by the rain, whether they
drank champagne from happiness or desperation. Notwithstanding his
dreamy disposition his temperament was ardent; his was an unspoiled
soul; he felt himself a sort of moral barometer for the magnificent and
feline women who treated him as if he were a wooden post when they were
gossiping, harried him like an animal when they were thirsty. He noted
that they were always thirsty. They smoked more than they ate, and
whispered more, if no men were present, than they smoked. But then, men
were seldom absent.

The night previous, Ambroise recalled the fact, she had not come in with
a different set. This was not her custom, and he worried over it.
Protected by princes and financiers, she nevertheless loved her liberty
so much that one seldom caught her in the same company twice in
succession. For this singular caprice Aholibah, oftener called the Woman
from Morocco,--because she had lived in Algiers,--was the despair of her
circle. Why, argued the other birds, why fly in the face of luck? To be
sure, she was still young, still beautiful, with that sort of metallic
beauty which reminded Ambroise of some priceless bronze blackened in the
sun. She was meagre, diabolically graceful, dark, with huge