everybody is
looking at us."

Martial returned to the Colonel of Cuirassiers. Then it was that the
little blue lady had become the object of the curiosity which agitated
in such various ways the Colonel, Soulanges, Martial, and Madame de
Vaudremont.

When the friends parted, after the challenge which closed their
conversation, the Baron flew to Madame de Vaudremont, and led her to
a place in the most brilliant quadrille. Favored by the sort of
intoxication which dancing always produces in a woman, and by the
turmoil of a ball, where men appear in all the trickery of dress,
which adds no less to their attractions than it does to those of women,
Martial thought he might yield with impunity to the charm that attracted
his gaze to the fair stranger. Though he succeeded in hiding his first
glances towards the lady in blue from the anxious activity of the
Countess' eyes, he was ere long caught in the fact; and though he
managed to excuse himself once for his absence of mind, he could not
justify the unseemly silence with which he presently heard the most
insinuating question which a woman can put to a man:

"Do you like me very much this evening?"

And the more dreamy he became, the more the Countess pressed and teased
him.

While Martial was dancing, the Colonel moved from group to group,
seeking information about the unknown lady. After exhausting the
good-humor even of the most indifferent, he had resolved to take
advantage of a moment when the Comtesse de Gondreville seemed to be at
liberty, to ask her the name of the mysterious lady, when he perceived a
little space left clear between the pedestal of the candelabrum and the
two sofas, which ended in that corner. The dance had left several of the
chairs vacant, which formed rows of fortifications held by mothers or
women of middle age; and the Colonel seized the opportunity to make his
way through this palisade hung with shawls and wraps. He began by making
himself agreeable to the dowagers, and so from one to another, and from
compliment to compliment, he at last reached the empty space next the
stranger. At the risk of catching on to the gryphons and chimaeras of
the huge candelabrum, he stood there, braving the glare and dropping of
the wax candles, to Martial's extreme annoyance.

The Colonel, far too tactful to speak suddenly to the little blue lady
on his right, began by saying to a plain woman who was seated on the
left:

"This is a splendid ball, madame!