"Some one will have to pay my cab," she said.
We were going to the Elysee Montmartre, and Alphonsine lent her a
couple of louis, _pour passer sa soiree_, and we all went away in
carriages, the little horses straining up the steep streets; the
plumes of the women's hats floating over the carriage hoods. Marie was
in one of the front carriages, and was waiting for us on the high
steps leading from the street to the _bal_.
"It's my last night," she said, "the last night I shall see the Elysee
for many a month."
"You'll soon be back again?"
"You see, I have been offered five hundred thousand francs to go to
Russia for three years. Fancy three years without seeing the Elysee,"
and she looked round as an angel might look upon Paradise out of which
she is about to be driven. "The trees are beautiful," she said,
"they're like a fairy tale," and that is exactly what they were like,
rising into the summer darkness, unnaturally green above the electric
lights. In the middle of a circle of white globes the orchestra played
upon an _estrade_, and everyone whirled his partner as if she
were a top. "I always sit over there under the trees in the angle,"
she said; and she was about to invite me to come and sit with her when
her attention was distracted from me; for the people had drawn
together into groups, and I heard everybody whispering: "That's Marie
Pellegrin.
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