regarded as truly impressive, and inevitably it led to the general inquiry:  what could the highest personages in the empire see to admire in that red-haired Englishwoman?  And of course Rivain himself, the handsome homicide, the centre and hero of the fete, was never long out of the conversation.  Several of the diners had seen him; one or two knew him and could give amazing details of his prowess as a man of pleasure.  Despite his crime, he seemed to be the object of sincere idolatry.  It was said positively that a niece of his victim had been promised a front place at the execution.

Apropos of this, Sophia gathered, to her intense astonishment and alarm, that the prison was close by and that the execution would take place at the corner of the square itself in which the hotel was situated.  Gerald must have known; he had hidden it from her.  She regarded him sideways, with distrust.  As the dinner finished, Gerald’s pose of a calm, disinterested, scientific observer of humanity gradually broke down.  He could not maintain it in front of the increasing license of the scene round the table.  He was at length somewhat ashamed of having exposed his wife to the view of such an orgy; his restless glance carefully avoided both Sophia and Chirac.  The latter, whose unaffected simplicity of interest in the affair had more than anything helped to keep Sophia in countenance, observed the change in Gerald and Sophia’s excessive discomfort, and suggested that they should leave the table without waiting for the coffee.  Gerald agreed quickly.  Thus had Sophia been released from the horror of the dinner.  She did not understand how a man so thoughtful and kindly as Chirac—­he had bidden her good night with the most distinguished courtesy—­could tolerate, much less pleasurably savour, the gluttonous, drunken, and salacious debauchery of the Hotel de Vezelay; but his theory was, so far as she could judge from his imperfect English, that whatever existed might be admitted and examined by serious persons interested in the study of human nature.  His face seemed to say:  “Why not?” His face seemed to say to Gerald and to herself:  “If this incommodes you, what did you come for?”

Gerald had left her at the bedroom door with a self-conscious nod.  She had partly undressed and lain down, and instantly the hotel had transformed itself into a kind of sounding-box.  It was as if, beneath and within all the noises of the square, every movement in the hotel reached her ears through cardboard walls:  distant shoutings and laughter below; rattlings of crockery below; stampings up and down stairs; stealthy creepings up and down stairs; brusque calls; fragments of song, whisperings; long sighs suddenly stifled; mysterious groans as of torture, broken by a giggle; quarrels and bickering,—­she was spared nothing in the strangely resonant darkness.