The little pantomime piece was called ‘Pierrot in Love’.  It consisted of a series of dainty coquetries, sudden quarrels, fits of jealousy, and tender reconciliations, played by the two sisters.  Colette with her beauty, Wanda with her talent, her impishness, her graceful and voluptuous attitudes, electrified the spectators, especially in a long monologue, in which Pierrot contemplated suicide, made more effective by the passionate and heart-piercing strains of the Hungarian’s violin, so that old Rochette cried out:  “What a pity such a wonder should not be upon the stage!” La Rochette, now retired into private life, wearing an old dress, with her gray hair and her black eyes, like those of a watchful crocodile, took the pleasure in the pantomime that all actors do to the very last in everything connected with the theatre.  She cried ‘brava’ in tones that might reach Italy; she blew kisses to the actors in default of flowers.

Madame d’Avrigny was also transported to the sixth heaven, but Jacqueline’s presence somewhat marred her pleasure.  When she first perceived her she had shown great surprise.  “You here, my dear?” she cried, “I thought you safe with our own excellent Giselle.”

“Safe, Madame?  It seems to me one can be safe anywhere,” Jacqueline answered, though she was tempted to say “safe nowhere;” but instead she inquired for Dolly.

Dolly’s mother bit her lips and then replied:  “You see I have not brought her.  Oh, yes, this house is very amusing—­but rather too much so.  The play was very pretty, and I am sorry it would not do at my house.  It is too—­too ‘risque’, you know;” and she rehearsed her usual speech about the great difficulties encountered by a lady who wished to give entertainments and provide amusement for her friends.

Meantime Pierrot, or rather Madame Strahlberg, had leaped over an imaginary barrier and came dancing toward the company, shaking her large sleeves and settling her little snake-like head in her large quilled collar, dragging after her the Hungarian, who seemed not very willing.  She presented him to Madame d’Avrigny, hoping that so fashionable a woman might want him to play at her receptions during the winter, and to a journalist who promised to give him a notice in his paper, provided—­and here he whispered something to Pierrot, who, smiling, answered neither yes nor no.  The sisters kept on their costumes; Colette was enchanting with her bare neck, her long-waisted black velvet corsage, her very short skirt, and a sort of three-cornered hat upon her head.  All the men paid court to her, and she accepted their homage, becoming gayer and gayer at every compliment, laughing loudly, possibly that her laugh might exhibit her beautiful teeth.

Wanda, as Pierrot, sang, with her hands in her pockets, a Russian village song:  “Ah!  Dounai-li moy Dounai” ("Oh! thou, my Danube").  Then she imperiously called Jacqueline to the piano:—­“It is your turn now,” she said, “most humble violet.”