He put his crown on the piano and for a moment or two stood moodily stamping his feet.

His hands were trembling slightly with the first beginnings of alcoholism, but he looked a sterling old fellow for all that, and a long white beard lent that fiery tippler's face of his a truly venerable appearance.

Then in the silence of the room, while the shower of hail was whipping the panes of the great window that looked out on the courtyard, he shook himself disgustedly.
"What filthy weather!" he growled.
Simonne and Prulliere did not move.

Four or five pictures--a landscape, a portrait of the actor Vernet--hung yellowing in the hot glare of the gas, and a bust of Potier, one of the bygone glories of the Varietes, stood gazing vacant-eyed from its pedestal.

But just then there was a burst of voices outside.