"Console yourself; it is not the cardinal they are looking at; it is the young Marquise de Santoval, whom everybody is admiring."
"The Marquise de Santoval! Oh! that makes a difference; I know her! I am very intimate with her husband!--But what a noise there is in the next room! Doubtless the cardinal is making his _entrée_; he seems to be coming this way, for the commotion is approaching us. So much the better! we shall be able to see him."
At that moment, the new arrival, whose peculiar costume and unique figure caused such a lively sensation in the throng that filled the rooms, made his appearance at the door of the gallery where the benches were. At sight of him many ladies could not control their desire to laugh, which they tried to dissemble behind their fans, while the little hunchback cried:
"By Notre Dame! who is this green man, who looks not unlike an asparagus stalk?--But I know him! why, yes, it's the Gascon chevalier, Monsieur de Passedix!--Where in the devil did the Prince de Valdimer pick up all these people?"
"My dear De Noirteuil," said La Valteline, "do not make a mistake; Passedix is a genuine chevalier of good family! He is absurd with respect to his physique, his costume, and his pretentious ways--that may be; but he is in no wise out of place here!"
The Gascon had, in fact, laid aside his orange costume. Having succeeded in obtaining an invitation to the Prince de Valdimer's ball, he had determined to create a sensation there by his magnificence, and, above all, by the originality of his costume; he had, in short, decided to do his utmost to forget Miretta; and having found no cure for his troubles in wine, he proposed to himself to make other conquests, hoping that another love would cure him of the passion which had caused him naught but vexation.
For several days, Passedix had reflected upon the subject of the color which would be most becoming to him and at the same time would be likely to attract the eyes of the ladies at a ball. He had decided on apple-green, and had ordered a satin doublet and short-clothes of that color, both slashed with olive-green, to form a contrast with the background. A dark-green girdle surrounded his waist; a short apple-green cloak was fastened to the left shoulder; and lastly, a sea-green velvet cap, surmounted by plumes of the same shade, completed the costume of the chevalier, who resembled an ambulatory tree, and whose entrance had produced an effect even beyond his hopes.