She pushed open the padded door, and as it gently swung back to its place they found themselves in a warm atmosphere, with brilliant lights streaming on them, and chanting resounding in their ears.  The ceremony had commenced, and Helene, perceiving that the nave was crowded, signified her intention of going down one of the aisles.  But there seemed insuperable obstacles in her way; she could not get near the altar.  Holding Jeanne by the hand, she for a time patiently pressed forward, but at last, despairing of advancing any farther, took the first unoccupied chairs she could find.  A pillar hid half of the choir from view.

“I can see nothing,” said the child, grievously discontented.  “This is a very nasty place.”

However, Helene signed to her to keep silent, and she lapsed into a fit of sulks.  In front of her she could only perceive the broad back of a fat old lady.  When her mother next turned towards her she was standing upright on her chair.

“Will you come down!” said Helene in a low voice.  “You are a nuisance.”

But Jeanne was stubborn.

“Hist! mamma,” she said, “there’s Madame Deberle.  Look! she is down there in the centre, beckoning to us.”

The young woman’s annoyance on hearing this made her very impatient, and she shook her daughter, who still refused to sit down.  During the three days that had intervened since the ball, Helene had avoided any visit to the doctor’s house on the plea of having a great deal to do.

“Mamma,” resumed Jeanne with a child’s wonted stubbornness, “she is looking at you; she is nodding good-day to you.”

At this intimation Helene was forced to turn round and exchange greetings; each bowed to the other.  Madame Deberle, in a striped silk gown trimmed with white lace, sat in the centre of the nave but a short distance from the choir, looking very fresh and conspicuous.  She had brought her sister Pauline, who was now busy waving her hand.  The chanting still continued, the elder members of the congregation pouring forth a volume of sound of falling scale, while now and then the shrill voice of the children punctuated the slow, monotonous rhythm of the canticle.

“They want us to go over to them, you see,” exclaimed Jeanne, with some triumph in her remark.

“It is useless; we shall be all right here.”

“Oh, mamma, do let us go over to them!  There are two chairs empty.”

“No, no; come and sit down.”

However, the ladies smilingly persisted in making signs, heedless to the last degree of the slight scandal they were causing; nay, delighted at being the observed of all observers.  Helene thus had to yield.  She pushed the gratified Jeanne before her, and strove to make her way through the congregation, her hands all the while trembling with repressed anger.  It was no easy business.  Devout female worshippers, unwilling to disturb themselves, glared at her with furious looks, whilst all agape they kept on singing.  She pressed on in this style for five long minutes, the tempest of voices ringing around her with ever-increasing violence.  Whenever she came to a standstill, Jeanne, squeezing close beside her, gazed at those cavernous, gaping mouths.  However, at last they reached the vacant space in front of the choir, and then had but a few steps to make.