remnant of affection prevents my telling you; and if I forbid you to
make the smallest advances to that young lady? It would be at the risk
of your life perhaps."

"To lose your good graces, madame, would be worse than to lose my life."

"Martial," said the Countess severely, "she is Madame de Soulanges. Her
husband would blow your brains out--if, indeed, you have any----"

"Ha! ha!" laughed the coxcomb. "What! the Colonel can leave the man
in peace who has robbed him of your love, and then would fight for his
wife! What a subversion of principles!--I beg of you to allow me to
dance with the little lady. You will then be able to judge how
little love that heart of ice could feel for you; for, if the Colonel
disapproves of my dancing with his wife after allowing me to----"

"But she loves her husband."

"A still further obstacle that I shall have the pleasure of conquering."

"But she is married."

"A whimsical objection!"

"Ah!" said the Countess, with a bitter smile, "you punish us alike for
our faults and our repentance!"

"Do not be angry!" exclaimed Martial eagerly. "Oh, forgive me, I beseech
you. There, I will think no more of Madame de Soulanges."

"You deserve that I should send you to her."

"I am off then," said the Baron, laughing, "and I shall return more
devoted to you than ever. You will see that the prettiest woman in the
world cannot capture the heart that is yours."

"That is to say, that you want to win Colonel Montcornet's horse?"

"Ah! Traitor!" said he, threatening his friend with his finger. The
Colonel smiled and joined them; the Baron gave him the seat near the
Countess, saying to her with a sardonic accent:

"Here, madame, is a man who boasted that he could win your good graces
in one evening."

He went away, thinking himself clever to have piqued the Countess' pride
and done Montcornet an ill turn; but, in spite of his habitual keenness,
he had not appreciated the irony underlying Madame de Vaudremont's
speech, and did not perceive that she had come as far to meet his friend
as his friend towards her, though both were unconscious of it.

At that moment when the lawyer went fluttering up to the candelabrum by
which Madame de Soulanges sat, pale, timid, and apparently alive only
in her eyes, her husband came to the door of the ballroom, his eyes
flashing with anger. The old Duchess, watchful of everything, flew
to her nephew, begged him to give her his arm and find her carriage