But he got up again almost directly and, returning to the dressing table, seemed to gaze with vacant eyes into space, for he was thinking of a bouquet of tuberoses which had once faded in his bedroom and had nearly killed him in their death.

When tuberoses are turning brown they have a human smell.
"Make haste!" Bordenave whispered, putting his head in behind the curtain.
The prince, however, was listening complaisantly to the Marquis de Chouard, who had taken up a hare's-foot on the dressing table and had begun explaining the way grease paint is put on.

In a corner of the room Satin, with her pure, virginal face, was scanning the gentlemen keenly, while the dresser, Mme Jules by name, was getting ready Venus' tights and tunic.

Mme Jules was a woman of no age.

She had the parchment skin and changeless features peculiar to old maids whom no one ever knew in their younger years.