The situation now began to be interesting. In a moment the interlude
would procure for me a position to be envied by every one in the house.
At the end of the act I left my box and made a rapid tour of the lobby
before presenting myself. The Duchess dispelled my embarrassment by a
cordial welcome. Women have a keen and supernatural perception about
everything concerning love, that is alarming.

The Duchess carelessly pronounced Mlle. de Chateaudun's name and mine,
as if to be rid of the ceremonies of introduction as soon as possible,
and touching a sofa with the end of her fan, said:

"My dear Roger, it is quite evident that you have come from everywhere
except from the civilized world. I bowed to you twenty times, and you
declined me the honor of a recognition. Absorbed in the music, I
suppose. La Favorita is not performed among the savages, so they remain
savages. How do you like our barytone? He has sung his aria with
delicious feeling."

While the Duchess was indulging her unmeaning questions and comments, a
rapid and careless glance at Mlle. de Chateaudun explained the
admiration that she commanded from the crowded house. Were I to tell you
that this young creature was a pretty, a beautiful woman, I would
feebly express my meaning, such phrases mean nothing. It would require a
master hand to paint a peerless woman, and I could not make the attempt
when the bright image of Irene is now surrounded by the gloomy shadows
of an afflicted heart.

After the first exchange of insignificant words, the skirmish of a
conversation, we talk as all talk who are anxious to appear ignorant of
the fact that they are gazed upon by a whole assembly.

Concealing my agitation under a strain of light conversation,
"Mademoiselle," I said, in answer to a question, "music is to-day the
necessity of the universe. France is commissioned to amuse the world.
Suppress our theatre, opera, Paris, and a settled melancholy pervades
the human family. You have no idea of the ennui that desolates the
hemispheres.

"Occasionally Paris enlivens the two Indias by dethroning a king. Once
Calcutta was _in extremis_, it was dying of the blues; the East India
company was rich but not amusing; with all its treasure it could not buy
one smile for Calcutta, so Paris sent Robert le Diable, La Muette de
Portici, a drama or two of Hugo and Dumas. Calcutta became convalescent
and recovered. Its neighbor, Chandernagore, scarcely existed then, but
in 1842, whe