“When are they coming back?” said Jacqueline, growing very nervous.  “It seems to me this clock must be wrong.  It says half-past nine.  I am sure it must be later than that.”

“Half-past nine!—­why, it is past eleven,” replied Miss Nora, with a giggle.  “Do you suppose they pay any attention to clocks in this house?  Everything here is topsy-turvy.”

“Oh! what shall I do?” sighed poor Jacqueline, on the verge of tears.

“Why, do they keep you such a prisoner as that?  Can’t you come in a little late—­”

“They wouldn’t open the doors—­they never open the doors on any pretext after ten o’clock,” cried Jacqueline, beside herself.

“Then your nuns must be savages?  You should teach them better.”

“Don’t be worried, dear little one, you can sleep on this sofa,” said Madame Odinska, kindly.

To whom had she not offered that useful sofa?  Wanda and Colette were just as ready to propose that others should spend the night with them as, on the smallest pretext, to accept the same hospitality from others.  Wanda, indeed, always slept curled up like a cat on a divan, in a fur wrapper, which she put on early in the evening when she wanted to smoke cigarettes.  She went to sleep at no regular hour.  A bear’s skin was placed always within her reach, so that if she were cold she could draw it over her.  Jacqueline, not being accustomed to these Polish fashions, did not seem to be much attracted by the offer of the sofa.  She blamed herself bitterly for her own folly in having got herself into a scrape which might lead to serious consequences.

But this was neither time nor place for expressions of anxiety; it would be absurd to trouble every one present with her regrets.  Besides, the harm was done—­it was irreparable—­and while she was turning over in her mind in what manner she could explain to the Mother Superior that the mistake about the hour had been no fault of hers—­and the Mother Superior, alas! would be sure to make inquiries as to the friends whom she had visited—­the magic violin of M. Szmera played its first notes, accompanied by Madame Odinska on the piano, and by a delicious little flute.  They played an overture, the dreamy sweetness of which extorted cries of admiration from all the women.

Suddenly, the screens parted, and upon the little platform that represented a stage bounded a sort of anomalous being, supple and charming, in the traditional dress of Pierrot, whom the English vulgarize and call Harlequin.  He had white camellias instead of buttons on his loose white jacket, and the bright eyes of Wanda shone out from his red-and-white face.  He held a mandolin, and imitated the most charming of serenades, before a make-believe window, which, being opened by a white, round arm, revealed Colette, dressed as Colombine.