"Give her a bunch of flowers," he said simply, and as if by accident,
and "Oh!..." said Elsa's mother, and disappeared. She came back with
three blue cotton cornflowers out of Elsa's hat, and the gap in the
bodice was hidden.
* * * * *
_He was not there_. Her eyes flew round the room, searching the shadows
in the corners, searching the faces. In the bitterness of dismay she
could not fully enter the door, but stood a little back, blocking the
entrance, afraid of the certainty which was ready for her within; but
others, less eager, and more hurried, pressed her on, drove her into
the centre of the room, and with a voice of excitement and distress
chattering within her, like some one who has mislaid all he has, she
shook hands with the eighteenth-century general who shrouded the
personality of the Commandant Dormans.
At first she could not recognise any one as she looked round upon Turks,
clowns, Indians, the tinselled, sequined, beaded, ragged flutter of the
room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer,
clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval,
who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the
swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that
her dress was as beautiful as she had hoped it might be, but what was
the use of its beauty if Julien should be missing? And, looking over
Duval's head, she tried to see through the crowd.
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