wo angles at the back of the hall, between the columns.

Macumer came, stood up, and put his opera-glasses before his eyes so
that he might be able to look at me comfortably.

In the first interval entered the young man whom I call "king of the
profligates." The Comte Henri de Marsay, who has great beauty of an
effeminate kind, entered the box with an epigram in his eyes, a smile
upon his lips, and an air of satisfaction over his whole countenance.
He first greeted my mother, Mme. d'Espard, and the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse, the Comte d'Esgrignon, and M. de Canalis; then turning to
me, he said:

"I do not know whether I shall be the first to congratulate you on an
event which will make you the object of envy to many."

"Ah! a marriage!" I cried. "Is it left for me, a girl fresh from the
convent, to tell you that predicted marriages never come off."

M. de Marsay bent down, whispering to Macumer, and I was convinced, from
the movement of his lips, that what he said was this:

"Baron, you are perhaps in love with that little coquette, who has used
you for her own ends; but as the question is one not of love, but of
marriage, it is as well for you to know what is going on."

Macumer treated this officious scandal-monger to one of those glances
of his which seem to me so eloquent of noble scorn, and replied to the
effect that he was "not in love with any little coquette." His whole
bearing so delighted me, that directly I caught sight of my father, the
glove was off.

Felipe had not a shadow of fear or doubt. How well did he bear out my
expectations! His faith is only in me, society cannot hurt him with its
lies. Not a muscle of the Arab's face stirred, not a drop of the blue
blood flushed his olive cheek.

The two young counts went out, and I said, laughing, to Macumer:

"M. de Marsay has been treating you to an epigram on me."

"He did more," he replied. "It was an epithalamium."

"You speak Greek to me," I said, rewarding him with a smile and a
certain look which always embarrasses him.

My father meantime was talking to Mme. de Maufrigneuse.

"I should think so!" he exclaimed. "The gossip which gets about is
scandalous. No sooner has a girl come out than everyone is keen to marry
her, and the ridiculous stories that are invented! I shall never force
Armande to marry against her will. I am going to take a turn in the
promenade, otherwise people will be saying that I allowed the rumor to
spread in order to