"Stand on guard! One--two--got him right in the middle of his chest!" He lunged and struck the young man with such force that the latter grew very pale and could not speak for some seconds.

With a wink Clarisse showed the others where Rose Mignon was standing on the threshold of the greenroom.

Rose had witnessed the scene, and she marched straight up to the journalist, as though she had failed to notice her husband and, standing on tiptoe, bare-armed and in baby costume, she held her face up to him with a caressing, infantine pout.
"Good evening, baby," said Fauchery, kissing her familiarly.
Thus he indemnified himself.

Mignon, however, did not seem to have observed this kiss, for everybody kissed his wife at the theater.

But he laughed and gave the journalist a keen little look.