Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/56

Rh "At any rate it is better than spending an evening alone. I never spent an evening alone in my life," said Mme. de Caviare, who could no more live without a crowd about her than she could sleep without chlorodyne, or put on a petticoat without two or three maids' assistance.

The French company in Floralia is usually about the average of the weakly patchwork troops of poor actors that pass on third rate little stages in the French departments; but Floralia, feminine and fashionable, flocks to the French company because it can rely on something tant soit peu hazardé, and is quite sure not to be bored with decency, and if by any oversight or bad taste the management should put any serious sort of piece on the stage, it can always turn its back to the stage and whisper to its lovers, or chatter shrilly to its allies.

They went into their box as the second act ended of Mme. de Scabreuse; a play of the period, written by a celebrated author; in which the lady married her nephew, and finding out that he was enamoured of her daughter, the offspring