It was, in fact, the illustrious actor, whom he had discovered in the front row near the platform.  His gray head was turned partly away from them.  He was leaning carelessly against a pillar, hat in hand, in his grand make-up as leading man:  dazzlingly white linen, hair curled with the tongs, black coat with a camellia in the buttonhole, like the ribbon of an order.  He glanced at the crowd from time to time with a patronizing air:  but his eyes were most frequently turned toward the platform, with encouraging little gestures and smiles and pretended applause, addressed to some one whom Pere Planus could not see from his seat.

There was nothing very extraordinary in the presence of the illustrious Delobelle at a cafe concert, as he spent all his evenings away from home; and yet the old cashier felt vaguely disturbed, especially when he discovered in the same row a blue cape and a pair of steely eyes.  It was Madame Dobson, the sentimental singing-teacher.  The conjunction of those two faces amid the pipe-smoke and the confusion of the crowd, produced upon Sigismond the effect of two ghosts evoked by a bad dream.  He was afraid for his friend, without knowing exactly why; and suddenly it occurred to him to take him away.

“Let us go, Risler.  The heat here is enough to kill one.”

Just as they rose—­for Risler was no more desirous to stay than to go—­the orchestra, consisting of a piano and several violins, began a peculiar refrain.  There was a flutter of curiosity throughout the room, and cries of “Hush! hush! sit down!”

They were obliged to resume their seats.  Risler, too, was beginning to be disturbed.

“I know that tune,” he said to himself.  “Where have I heard it?”

A thunder of applause and an exclamation from Planus made him raise his eyes.

“Come, come, let us go,” said the cashier, trying to lead him away.

But it was too late.

Risler had already seen his wife come forward to the front of the stage and curtsey to the audience with a ballet-dancer’s smile.

She wore a white gown, as on the night of the ball; but her whole costume was much less rich and shockingly immodest.

The dress was barely caught together at the shoulders; her hair floated in a blond mist low over her eyes, and around her neck was a necklace of pearls too large to be real, alternated with bits of tinsel.  Delobelle was right:  the Bohemian life was better suited to her.  Her beauty had gained an indefinably reckless expression, which was its most characteristic feature, and made her a perfect type of the woman who has escaped from all restraint, placed herself at the mercy of every accident, and is descending stage by stage to the lowest depths of the Parisian hell, from which nothing is powerful enough to lift her and restore her to the pure air and the light.

And how perfectly at ease she seemed in her strolling life!  With what self-possession she walked to the front of the stage!  Ah! could she have seen the desperate, terrible glance fixed upon her down there in the hall, concealed behind a pillar, her smile would have lost that equivocal placidity, her voice would have sought in vain those wheedling, languorous tones in which she warbled the only song Madame Dobson had ever been able to teach her: