Then she was
frightened, pushed back her chair, and cast down her eyes.
The others began to eat; she ate nothing. Her head was on fire, her eyes
smarted, and her skin was ice-cold. In her head she seemed to feel the
floor of the ball-room rebounding again beneath the rhythmical pulsation
of the thousands of dancing feet. And now the smell of the punch, the
smoke of the cigars, made her giddy. She fainted, and they carried her
to the window.
Day was breaking, and a great stain of purple colour broadened out
in the pale horizon over the St. Catherine hills. The livid river was
shivering in the wind; there was no one on the bridges; the street lamps
were going out.
She revived, and began thinking of Berthe asleep yonder in the servant's
room. Then a cart filled with long strips of iron passed by, and made a
deafening metallic vibration against the walls of the houses.
She slipped away suddenly, threw off her costume, told Leon she must get
back, and at last was alone at the Hotel de Boulogne.
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