“Give me your arm,” she said to him, and they returned together to the salons.  The white bridal gown with its long train made the badly cut, awkwardly worn black coat appear even more uncouth; but a coat can not be retied like a cravat; she must needs take it as it was.  As they passed along, returning the salutations of all the guests who were so eager to smile upon them, Sidonie had a momentary thrill of pride, of satisfied vanity.  Unhappily it did not last.  In a corner of the room sat a young and attractive woman whom nobody invited to dance, but who looked on at the dances with a placid eye, illumined by all the joy of a first maternity.  As soon as he saw her, Risler walked straight to the corner where she sat and compelled Sidonie to sit beside her.  Needless to say that it was Madame “Chorche.”  To whom else would he have spoken with such affectionate respect?  In what other hand than hers could he have placed his little Sidonie’s, saying:  “You will love her dearly, won’t you?  You are so good.  She needs your advice, your knowledge of the world.”

“Why, my dear Risler,” Madame Georges replied, “Sidonie and I are old friends.  We have reason to be fond of each other still.”

And her calm, straightforward glance strove unsuccessfully to meet that of her old friend.

With his ignorance of women, and his habit of treating Sidonie as a child, Risler continued in the same tone: 

“Take her for your model, little one.  There are not two people in the world like Madame Chorche.  She has her poor father’s heart.  A true Fromont!”

Sidonie, with her eyes cast down, bowed without replying, while an imperceptible shudder ran from the tip of her satin shoe to the topmost bit of orange-blossom in her crown.  But honest Risler saw nothing.  The excitement, the dancing, the music, the flowers, the lights made him drunk, made him mad.  He believed that every one breathed the same atmosphere of bliss beyond compare which enveloped him.  He had no perception of the rivalries, the petty hatreds that met and passed one another above all those bejewelled foreheads.

He did not notice Delobelle, standing with his elbow on the mantel, one hand in the armhole of his waistcoat and his hat upon his hip, weary of his eternal attitudinizing, while the hours slipped by and no one thought of utilizing his talents.  He did not notice M. Chebe, who was prowling darkly between the two doors, more incensed than ever against the Fromonts.  Oh! those Fromonts!—­How large a place they filled at that wedding!  They were all there with their wives, their children, their friends, their friends’ friends.  One would have said that one of themselves was being married.  Who had a word to say of the Rislers or the Chebes?  Why, he—­he, the father, had not even been presented!—­And the little man’s rage was redoubled by the attitude of Madame Chebe, smiling maternally upon one and all in her scarab-hued dress.