She rang the bell and glanced at the big window over the entrance. It
had a complicated arrangement of folding green blinds, which were half
open, and a grey awning with a red border. She wondered whether it was
the window of the singer's own especial room.
The house was different from those next it, though she could hardly
tell where the difference lay. She thought that if she had not known
the number she should have instinctively picked out this house, amongst
all the others in that part of the Avenue Hoche, as the one in which
the prima donna or an actress must be living; and as she stood waiting,
a very simple and well-bred figure of a young lady, she felt that on
the other side of the door there was a whole world of which she knew
nothing, which was not at all like her own world, which was going to
offend something in her, and which it was nevertheless her duty to
enter. She was in that state of mind in which a nun breathes an
ejaculatory prayer against the wiles of Satan, and a delicately
nurtured girl thinks of her mother. Her heart hardly beat any faster
than usual, though she was sure that one of the great moments of her
life was at hand; but she drew her skirt round her a little closer, and
pursed her lips together a little more tightly, and was very glad to
feel that nobody could mistake her for anything but a lady.