The young Alsatian had never seen Aholibah look so radiant.  She was in high spirits, and her pungent talk aroused her companion from incipient moroseness.  After midnight the party grew—­some actresses from a near-by theatre came in with their male friends, and another waiter was detailed to the aid of Ambroise.  But he stuck to the first-comers and served so much wine to them that he had the satisfaction of seeing Aholibah’s disagreeable protector collapse.  She hardly noticed it, for she was talking vivaciously to Madeleine about the premiere of Donnay’s comedy.  Thrice Ambroise sought to fill her glass; but she repulsed him.  He was sad.  Something told him that Aholibah was farther away from him than ever; was she on the eve of forming one of those alliances that would rob him finally of her presence?  He eyed the sleeping man—­surely a monster, a millionnaire, with the tastes of a brute.  It was all very trying to a man with fine nerves.  Several times he caught Aholibah’s eye upon him, and he vaguely wondered if he had omitted anything—­or, had he betrayed his feelings?  In Paris the waiter who shows that he has ears, or eyes, or a heart, except in the exercise of his functions, is lost.  He is bound to be caught and his telltale humanity scourged by instant dismissal.  So when those fathomless eyes glittered in his direction, his knees trembled, and a ball of copper invaded his throat.  He could barely drag himself to her side and ask if he could help her.  A burst of impertinent laughter greeted him, and Madeleine cried:—­

“Your blond garcon seems smitten, Aholibah!” When Ambroise heard this awful phrase, his courage quite forsook him, and he withdrew into the obscurity of the hall.  So white was he that the kindly Joseph asked solicitously if he were ill.  Ambroise shook his head.  The heat, he feebly explained, had made his head giddy.  Better drink some iced mineral water, was suggested—­the other man could look after the party!  But Ambroise would not hear of this, and feeling once more the beckoning gaze of Aholibah he marched bravely to her and was rewarded by a tap on the wrist.

“There, loiterer!  Go call a carriage.  The Prince is sleepy—­dear sheep!” This last was a tender apostrophe to her snoring friend.  Ambroise helped them into a fiacre.  When it drove away it was past two o’clock; the house had to be closed.  He walked slowly home to his little chamber on the Rue Puteaux, just off the Batignolles.  But he could not sleep until the street-cleaners began the work of another day....  The Woman from Morocco was the scarlet colour of his troubled dreams....

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