On that evening Risler had taken the Chebe family to the Gymnase, and
throughout the evening he and Madame Chebe had been making signs and
winking at each other behind the children's backs. And when they left
the theatre Madame Chebe solemnly placed Sidonie's arm in Frantz's, as
if she would say to the lovelorn youth, "Now settle matters--here is
your chance."

Thereupon the poor lover tried to settle matters.

It is a long walk from the Gymnase to the Marais. After a very few
steps the brilliancy of the boulevard is left behind, the streets become
darker and darker, the passers more and more rare. Frantz began by
talking of the play. He was very fond of comedies of that sort, in which
there was plenty of sentiment.

"And you, Sidonie?"

"Oh! as for me, Frantz, you know that so long as there are fine
costumes--"

In truth she thought of nothing else at the theatre. She was not one
of those sentimental creatures; a la Madame Bovary, who return from the
play with love-phrases ready-made, a conventional ideal. No! the theatre
simply made her long madly for luxury and fine raiment; she brought away
from it nothing but new methods of arranging the hair, and patterns of
gowns. The new, exaggerated toilettes of the actresses, their gait,
even the spurious elegance of their speech, which seemed to her of the
highest distinction, and with it all the tawdry magnificence of the
gilding and the lights, the gaudy placard at the door, the long line of
carriages, and all the somewhat unwholesome excitement that springs up
about a popular play; that was what she loved, that was what absorbed
her thoughts.

"How well they acted their love-scene!" continued the lover.

And, as he uttered that suggestive phrase, he bent fondly toward a
little face surrounded by a white woollen hood, from which the hair
escaped in rebellious curls.

Sidonie sighed:

"Oh! yes, the love-scene. The actress wore beautiful diamonds."

There was a moment's silence. Poor Frantz had much difficulty in
explaining himself. The words he sought would not come, and then, too,
he was afraid. He fixed the time mentally when he would speak:

"When we have passed the Porte Saint-Denis--when we have left the
boulevard."

But when the time arrived, Sidonie began to talk of such indifferent
matters that his declaration froze on his lips, or else it was stopped
by a passing carriage, which enabled their elders to overtake them.

At last, in the Marais, he s