Since the beginning of supper she had seemed no longer in her own house.

All this company had overwhelmed and bewildered her with their shouts to the waiters, the loudness of their voices and the way in which they put themselves at their ease, just as though they were in a restaurant.

Forgetting her role of hostess, she busied herself exclusively with bulky Steiner, who was verging on apoplexy beside her.

She was listening to his proposals and continually refusing them with shakes of the head and that temptress's laughter which is peculiar to a voluptuous blonde.

The champagne she had been drinking had flushed her a rosy-red; her lips were moist; her eyes sparkled, and the banker's offers rose with every kittenish movement of her shoulders, with every little voluptuous lift and fall of her throat, which occurred when she turned her head.