At the back of this box were observable the worthy countenance of Caroline's mother and the side face of a tall young man with a noble head of light hair and an irreproachable getup.
"Do look!" La Faloise again insisted.

"There's a man there." Fauchery decided to level his opera glass at the stage box.

But he turned round again directly.
"Oh, it's Labordette," he muttered in a careless voice, as though that gentle man's presence ought to strike all the world as though both natural and immaterial.
Behind the cousins people shouted "Silence!" They had to cease talking.
A motionless fit now seized the house, and great stretches of heads, all erect and attentive, sloped away from stalls to topmost gallery.
The first act of the Blonde Venus took place in Olympus, a pasteboard Olympus, with clouds in the wings and the throne of Jupiter on the right of the stage.

First of all Iris and Ganymede, aided by a troupe of celestial attendants, sang a chorus while they arranged the seats of the gods for the council.

Once again the prearranged applause of the clappers alone burst forth; the public, a little out of their depth, sat waiting.