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She sat quite still, leaning forward and resting her chin on her hand, and her elbow on her knee, thinking. There was a knock at the door; she sprang to her feet and opened, and found a shabby woman, who looked like a rather slatternly servant, standing outside with the box-opener, who had shown her where to find the prima donna.
I have even been informed that at Paris she discovered a relation of her own, no less a person than her maternal grandmother, who was not by any means a Montmorenci, but a hideous old box-opener at a theatre on the Boulevards. The meeting between them, of which other persons, as it is hinted elsewhere, seem to have been acquainted, must have been a very affecting interview.
But she enjoyed Cardailhac's theatre most of all. There the Nabob was at home. From the first manager down to the last box-opener, the whole staff belonged to him.
"Those four women on our right must be sensible people," said our blonde statue; "they have put their show-piece in front. I suppose she is the beauty of the party; did you ever behold such dreadful bonnets and dresses? They must have come from the Olympic Circus. If I were disfigured in that way, I would be a box-opener, but never would be seen in one!"
In the brightly lighted corridor there was no one but the box-opener and two attendants with fur cloaks on their arms listening at the doors. Through the closed doors came the sounds of the discreet staccato accompaniment of the orchestra, and a single female voice rendering distinctly a musical phrase.
I must go home to dinner. My wife is a box-opener she will not know what has become of me. The theatre opens at a quarter to six, you know." "Yes, I know . . . but remember dat I am alone in die earth, dat I haf no friend. You dat haf shed a tear for Bons enliden me; I am in teep tarkness, und Bons said dat I vas in der midst of shcoundrels."
A box-opener, speaking to Sidonie, referred to Georges as "your husband," and the little woman beamed with delight. "Your husband!" That simple phrase was enough to upset her and set in motion a multitude of evil currents in the depths of her heart. As they passed through the corridors and the foyer, she watched Risler and Madame "Chorche" walking in front of them.
Being a discreet and respectful nephew, I was about to turn my eyes the other way, when he beckoned me with an imperative gesture to join him in his box. I immediately obeyed this peremptory summons, and, going round by the passage, got the box-opener to usher me in. "Come in, and sit down," said my uncle, pointing out to me a chair behind him.
Those last words were spoken with rare delicacy; they were murmured more than spoken box-opener to a prince! It would have been unacceptable without that perfect reserve in accent and tone; yes, it was a box-opener who spoke, but a box-opener who was a little bit the aunt of former times, the aunt
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