lled up into his eyes.

Chevalier asked if he might enter the box. He was happy, less on account
of his prodigious success than at seeing Felicie. He dreamed, in his
infatuation, that she had come for his sake, that she loved him, that
she was returning to him.

She feared him, and, as she was timid, she flattered him.

"I congratulate you, Chevalier. You were simply astounding. Your exit is
a marvel. You can take my word for it. I am not the only one to say so.
Fagette thought you were wonderful."

"Really?" asked Chevalier.

It was one of the happiest moments of his life.

A shrieking voice issued from the deserted heights of the third
galleries, sounding through the house like the whistle of a locomotive.

"One can't hear a word you say, my children; speak louder and pronounce
your words distinctly!"

The author appeared, infinitely small, in the shadow of the dome.

Thereupon the utterance of the players who were collected at the front
of the stage, around a naphtha flare, rose more distinctly:

"The Emperor will allow the troops to rest for some weeks at Moscow;
then with the rapidity of an eagle he will swoop down upon St.
Petersburg."

"Spades, clubs, trump, two points to me."

"There we shall spend the winter, and next spring we shall penetrate
into India, crossing Persia, and the British power will be a thing of
the past."

"Thirty-six in diamonds."

"And I the four aces."

"By the way, gentlemen, what say you to the Imperial decree concerning
the actors of Paris, dated from the Kremlin? There's an end of the
squabbles between Mademoiselle Mars and Mademoiselle Leverd."

"Do look at Fagette," said Nanteuil. "She is charming in that blue
Marie-Louise dress trimmed with chinchilla."

Madame Doulce brought out from under her furs a stack of tickets already
soiled through having been too frequently offered.

"Master," she said, addressing Constantin Marc, "you know that next
Sunday I am to give a reading, with appropriate remarks, of the best
letters of Madame de Sevigne, for the benefit of the three poor orphans
left by Lacour, the actors who died this winter in so deplorable a
fashion."

"Had he any talent?" asked Constantin Marc.

"None whatever," said Nanteuil.

"Well, then, in what way is his death deplorable?"

"Oh, Master," sighed Madame Doulce, "do not pretend to be unfeeling."

"I am not pretending to be unfeeling. But here is something that
surprises me: the value which we se