Prulliere and Clarisse refrained from laughing aloud.  For some time past the whole company had been deriving amusement from a comedy which was going on in the wings.  Mignon, rendered frantic by his wife’s caprice and annoyed at the thought that this man Fauchery brought nothing but a certain doubtful notoriety to his household, had conceived the idea of revenging himself on the journalist by overwhelming him with tokens of friendship.  Every evening, therefore, when he met him behind scenes he would shower friendly slaps on his back and shoulders, as though fairly carried away by an outburst of tenderness, and Fauchery, who was a frail, small man in comparison with such a giant, was fain to take the raps with a strained smile in order not to quarrel with Rose’s husband.

“Aha, my buck, you’ve insulted Fontan,” resumed Mignon, who was doing his best to force the joke.  “Stand on guard!  One—­two—­got him right in the middle of his chest!”

He lunged and struck the young man with such force that the latter grew very pale and could not speak for some seconds.  With a wink Clarisse showed the others where Rose Mignon was standing on the threshold of the greenroom.  Rose had witnessed the scene, and she marched straight up to the journalist, as though she had failed to notice her husband and, standing on tiptoe, bare-armed and in baby costume, she held her face up to him with a caressing, infantine pout.

“Good evening, baby,” said Fauchery, kissing her familiarly.

Thus he indemnified himself.  Mignon, however, did not seem to have observed this kiss, for everybody kissed his wife at the theater.  But he laughed and gave the journalist a keen little look.  The latter would assurely have to pay for Rose’s bravado.

In the passage the tightly shutting door opened and closed again, and a tempest of applause was blown as far as the greenroom.  Simonne came in after her scene.

“Oh, Father Bosc has just scored!” she cried.  “The prince was writhing with laughter and applauded with the rest as though he had been paid to.  I say, do you know the big man sitting beside the prince in the stage box?  A handsome man, with a very sedate expression and splendid whiskers!”

“It’s Count Muffat,” replied Fauchery.  “I know that the prince, when he was at the empress’s the day before yesterday, invited him to dinner for tonight.  He’ll have corrupted him afterward!”

“So that’s Count Muffat!  We know his father-in-law, eh, Auguste?” said Rose, addressing her remark to Mignon.  “You know the Marquis de Chouard, at whose place I went to sing?  Well, he’s in the house too.  I noticed him at the back of a box.  There’s an old boy for you!”

Prulliere, who had just put on his huge plume of feathers, turned round and called her.

“Hi, Rose!  Let’s go now!”