“Now look here, you Fontan, do please comprehend the way Tardiveau gets packed off.  You must lean forward like this in order to catch hold of the duchess.  And then you, Rose, must change your position like that but not too soon—­only when you hear the kiss.”

He broke off and in the heat of explanation shouted to Cossard: 

“Geraldine, give the kiss!  Loudly, so that it may be heard!”

Father Cossard turned toward Bosc and smacked his lips vigorously.

“Good!  That’s the kiss,” said Fauchery triumphantly.  “Once more; let’s have it once more.  Now you see, Rose, I’ve had time to move, and then I give a little cry—­so:  ‘Oh, she’s given him a kiss.’  But before I do that, Tardiveau must go up the stage.  D’you hear, Fontan?  You go up.  Come, let’s try it again, all together.”

The actors continued the scene again, but Fontan played his part with such an ill grace that they made no sort of progress.  Twice Fauchery had to repeat his explanation, each time acting it out with more warmth than before.  The actors listened to him with melancholy faces, gazed momentarily at one another, as though he had asked them to walk on their heads, and then awkwardly essayed the passage, only to pull up short directly afterward, looking as stiff as puppets whose strings have just been snapped.

“No, it beats me; I can’t understand it,” said Fontan at length, speaking in the insolent manner peculiar to him.

Bordenave had never once opened his lips.  He had slipped quite down in his armchair, so that only the top of his hat was now visible in the doubtful flicker of the gaslight on the stand.  His cane had fallen from his grasp and lay slantwise across his waistcoat.  Indeed, he seemed to be asleep.  But suddenly he sat bolt upright.

“It’s idiotic, my boy,” he announced quietly to Fauchery.

“What d’you mean, idiotic?” cried the author, growing very pale.  “It’s you that are the idiot, my dear boy!”

Bordenave began to get angry at once.  He repeated the word “idiotic” and, seeking a more forcible expression, hit upon “imbecile” and “damned foolish.”  The public would hiss, and the act would never be finished!  And when Fauchery, without, indeed, being very deeply wounded by these big phrases, which always recurred when a new piece was being put on, grew savage and called the other a brute, Bordenave went beyond all bounds, brandished his cane in the air, snorted like a bull and shouted: 

“Good God!  Why the hell can’t you shut up?  We’ve lost a quarter of an hour over this folly.  Yes, folly!  There’s no sense in it.  And it’s so simple, after all’s said and done!  You, Fontan, mustn’t move.  You, Rose, must make your little movement, just that, no more; d’ye see?  And then you come down.  Now then, let’s get it done this journey.  Give the kiss, Cossard.”