And then, at night, we went to the Opera Ball.
P'tit-Bleu was dressed as an Odalisque: a tiny round Turkish cap, set jauntily sidewise on her head, a short Turkish jacket, both cap and jacket jingling and glittering with sequins; a long veil of gauze, wreathed like a scarf round her shoulders; then baggy Turkish trousers of blue silk, and scarlet Turkish slippers. Oh, she was worth seeing; I was proud to have her on my arm. Her black crinkling hair, her dancing eyes, her eager face and red smiling mouth—the Sultan himself might have envied me such a houri. And many, in effect, were the envious glances that we encountered, as we made our way into the great brilliantly lighted ball-room, and moved hither and thither amongst the Harlequins and Columbines, the Pierrots, the Toréadors, the Shepherdesses and Vivandières, the countless fantastic masks, by whom the place was peopled. P'tit-Bleu had a loup of black velvet, which sometimes she wore, and sometimes gave to me to carry for her. I don't know when she looked the more dangerous, when she had it on, and her eyes glimmered mysteriously through its peep-holes, or when she had it off.
Many were the envious glances that we encountered, and presently I became aware that one individual was following us about: a horrid, glossy creature, in a dress suit, with a top-hat that was much too shiny, and a huge waxed moustache that he kept twirling invidiously: an undersized, dark, Hebraic-featured man, screamingly "rasta'." Whithersoever we turned, he hovered annoyingly near to us, and ogled P'tit-Bleu under my very beard. This was bad enough; but—do sorrows ever come as single spies?—conceive my emotions, if you please, when, by-and-by, suspicion hardened into certitude that P'tit-Bleu was not merely getting a vainglorious gratification from his attentions, but that she was positively playing up to them, encouraging him to persevere!She
