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Rh Laurent, having come to his senses in a minute, commanded his companions to be silent, and at the same time put his ear to the partition separating the two rooms.

Cries, confusion, the sound of breakage, a window being opened, but no reply. Then the crash of the door being broken in.

Insurgent by instinct against all authority, ready to take the part of the feasters against the police, Laurent flew outside, and above the shoulders of the superintendent of police who had stopped at the sill of the door, above those of Béjard, of Athanasius and Gaston, he saw, to his consternation, Angéle and Cora crouching each one in a corner of the room and forcing themselves to disguise in the folds of the window-curtain the pagan simplicity of their toilette. Not far from them, seeking to put on a face, a dignified and resolute air, incompatable, however, with a state of attire as makeshift as that of their fair ladies, stood the elegant von Frans and the tall Ditmayr and—easily recognizable, although he was no longer wearing his red tie and dogskin gloves—the swarthy pimp whom Laurent had that afternoon taught how to throw pepernotes. The husbands were perhaps even more astounded and more overwhelmed than the gallants; this was the case, at least, with the young Saint-Fardiers. The superintendent of police himself lost assurance, and became confused in his procedure.

But the humorous side of this modernist scene did not in the least strike Laurent; he could only consider and figure out the consequence of the crash.

The presence of Béjard, moreover, would have been sufficient to remove any desire to laugh. Alone among