“It’s Gaga,” was Fauchery’s simple reply, and as this name seemed to astound his cousin, he added: 

“You don’t know Gaga?  She was the delight of the early years of Louis Philippe.  Nowadays she drags her daughter about with her wherever she goes.”

La Faloise never once glanced at the young girl.  The sight of Gaga moved him; his eyes did not leave her again.  He still found her very good looking but he dared not say so.

Meanwhile the conductor lifted his violin bow and the orchestra attacked the overture.  People still kept coming in; the stir and noise were on the increase.  Among that public, peculiar to first nights and never subject to change, there were little subsections composed of intimate friends, who smilingly forgathered again.  Old first-nighters, hat on head, seemed familiar and quite at ease and kept exchanging salutations.  All Paris was there, the Paris of literature, of finance and of pleasure.  There were many journalists, several authors, a number of stock-exchange people and more courtesans than honest women.  It was a singularly mixed world, composed, as it was, of all the talents and tarnished by all the vices, a world where the same fatigue and the same fever played over every face.  Fauchery, whom his cousin was questioning, showed him the boxes devoted to the newspapers and to the clubs and then named the dramatic critics—­a lean, dried-up individual with thin, spiteful lips and, chief of all, a big fellow with a good-natured expression, lolling on the shoulder of his neighbor, a young miss over whom he brooded with tender and paternal eyes.

But he interrupted himself on seeing La Faloise in the act of bowing to some persons who occupied the box opposite.  He appeared surprised.

“What?” he queried.  “You know the Count Muffat de Beuville?”

“Oh, for a long time back,” replied Hector.  “The Muffats had a property near us.  I often go to their house.  The count’s with his wife and his father-in-law, the Marquis de Chouard.”

And with some vanity—­for he was happy in his cousin’s astonishment—­he entered into particulars.  The marquis was a councilor of state; the count had recently been appointed chamberlain to the empress.  Fauchery, who had caught up his opera glass, looked at the countess, a plump brunette with a white skin and fine dark eyes.

“You shall present me to them between the acts,” he ended by saying.  “I have already met the count, but I should like to go to them on their Tuesdays.”

Energetic cries of “Hush” came from the upper galleries.  The overture had begun, but people were still coming in.  Late arrivals were obliging whole rows of spectators to rise; the doors of boxes were banging; loud voices were heard disputing in the passages.  And there was no cessation of the sound of many conversations, a sound similar to the loud twittering of talkative sparrows at close of day.  All was in confusion; the house was a