rum had infected the dancers with the giddiness
and madness of their uproar. At a glance she embraced the whole room,
all the men leading their partners back to the places marked by their
caps: she had been misled; _he_ was not there, she could not see him.
However, she waited. She entered the dancers' enclosure and sat down on
the end of a bench, trying not to seem too much embarrassed. From their
linen caps she judged that the women seated in line beside her were
servants like herself: comrades of her own class alarmed her less than
the little brazen-faced hussies, with their hair in nets and their hands
in the pockets of their _paletots_, who strolled humming about the room.
But soon she aroused hostile attention, even on her bench. Her hat--only
about a dozen women at the ball wore hats--her flounced skirt, the white
hem of which could be seen under her dress, the gold brooch that secured
her shawl awakened malevolent curiosity all about her. Glances and
smiles were bestowed upon her that boded her no good. All the women
seemed to be asking one another where this new arrival had come from,
and to be saying to one another that she would take their lovers from
them. Young women who were walking about the hall in pairs, with their
arms about one another's waists as if for a waltz, made her lower her
eyes as they passed in front of her, and then went on with a
contemptuous shrug, turning their heads to look back at her.

She changed her place: she was met with the same smiles, the same
whispering, the same hostility. She went to the further end of the hall;
all the women looked after her; she felt as if she were enveloped in
malicious, envious glances, from the hem of her dress to the flowers on
her hat. Her face flushed. At times she feared that she should weep. She
longed to leave the place, but she lacked courage to walk the length of
the hall all alone.

She began mechanically to watch an old woman who was slowly making the
circuit of the hall with a noiseless step, like a bird of night flying
in a circle. A black hat, of the hue of charred paper, confined her
_bandeaux_ of grizzled hair. From her square, high masculine shoulders,
hung a sombre-hued Scotch tartan. When she reached the door, she cast a
last glance about the hall, that embraced everyone therein, with the eye
of a vulture seeking in vain for food.

Suddenly there was an outcry: a police officer was ejecting a diminutive
youth who tried to bite his ha