s head against the walls! To think that
he had believed in her innocence, in her purity! The Angel of Music!
He knew him now! He saw him! It was beyond a doubt some unspeakable
tenor, a good-looking jackanapes, who mouthed and simpered as he sang!
He thought himself as absurd and as wretched as could be. Oh, what a
miserable, little, insignificant, silly young man was M. le Vicomte de
Chagny! thought Raoul, furiously. And she, what a bold and damnable
sly creature!

His brother was waiting for him and Raoul fell into his arms, like a
child. The count consoled him, without asking for explanations; and
Raoul would certainly have long hesitated before telling him the story
of the Angel of Music. His brother suggested taking him out to dinner.
Overcome as he was with despair, Raoul would probably have refused any
invitation that evening, if the count had not, as an inducement, told
him that the lady of his thoughts had been seen, the night before, in
company of the other sex in the Bois. At first, the viscount refused
to believe; but he received such exact details that he ceased
protesting. She had been seen, it appeared, driving in a brougham,
with the window down. She seemed to be slowly taking in the icy night
air. There was a glorious moon shining. She was recognized beyond a
doubt. As for her companion, only his shadowy outline was
distinguished leaning back in the dark. The carriage was going at a
walking pace in a lonely drive behind the grand stand at Longchamp.

Raoul dressed in frantic haste, prepared to forget his distress by
flinging himself, as people say, into "the vortex of pleasure." Alas,
he was a very sorry guest and, leaving his brother early, found
himself, by ten o'clock in the evening, in a cab, behind the Longchamp
race-course.

It was bitterly cold. The road seemed deserted and very bright under
the moonlight. He told the driver to wait for him patiently at the
corner of a near turning and, hiding himself as well as he could, stood
stamping his feet to keep warm. He had been indulging in this healthy
exercise for half an hour or so, when a carriage turned the corner of
the road and came quietly in his direction, at a walking pace.

As it approached, he saw that a woman was leaning her head from the
window. And, suddenly, the moon shed a pale gleam over her features.

"Christine!"

The sacred name of his love had sprung from his heart and his lips. He
could not keep it back.