He caught my eye on that spiritedly composed woodcut.

(There were no inane snapshot-reproductions in those days.) It was the obvious romance for the use of royalists but it arrested my attention.
Just then some masks from outside invaded the cafe, dancing hand in hand in a single file led by a burly man with a cardboard nose.

He gambolled in wildly and behind him twenty others perhaps, mostly Pierrots and Pierrettes holding each other by the hand and winding in and out between the chairs and tables: eyes shining in the holes of cardboard faces, breasts panting; but all preserving a mysterious silence.
They were people of the poorer sort (white calico with red spots, costumes), but amongst them there was a girl in a black dress sewn over with gold half moons, very high in the neck and very short in the skirt.
Most of the ordinary clients of the cafe didn't even look up from their games or papers.

I, being alone and idle, stared abstractedly.

The girl costumed as Night wore a small black velvet mask, what is called in French a "_loup_." What made her daintiness join that obviously rough lot I can't imagine.