red.

The next day at eight o'clock in the morning Mme. Derline awoke with an
uneasy feeling. She had passed a troubled night--she, who usually slept
like a child. The evening before at the opera, in the box, Mme. Derline
had vaguely felt that something was going on around her. And during the
entire last act an opera-glass, obstinately fixed on her--the prince's
opera-glass--had thrown her into a certain agitation, not disagreeable,
however. She wore a low dress--too much so, in her mother's opinion--and
two or three times, under the fixity of that opera-glass, she had raised
the shoulder-straps of her dress.

So, after opening her eyes, Mme. Derline reclosed them lazily,
indolently, with thoughts floating between dreamland and reality. She
again saw the opera-house, and a hundred, two hundred, five hundred
opera-glasses obstinately fixed on her--on her alone.

The maid entered, placed a tray on a little table, made up a big fire in
the fire-place, and went away. There was a cup of chocolate and the
morning paper on the tray, the same as every morning. Then Mme. Derline
courageously got up, slipped her little bare feet into fur slippers,
wrapped herself in a white cashmere dressing-gown, and crouched
shivering in an arm-chair by the fire. She sipped the chocolate, and
slightly burned herself; she must wait a little while. She put down the
cup, took up the paper, unfolded it, and rapidly ran her eye over the
six columns of the front page. At the bottom, quite at the bottom of the
sixth column, were the following lines:

_Last evening at the opera there was a very brilliant performance of
"Sigurd." Society was well represented there; the beautiful Duchess
of Montaiglon, the pretty Countess Verdiniere of Lardac, the
marvellous Marquise of Muriel, the lively Baroness of_--

To read the name of the baroness it was necessary to turn the page. Mme.
Derline did not turn it; she was thinking, reflecting. The evening
before she had amused herself by having Palmer point out to her the
social leaders in the house, and it so happened that the banker had
pointed out to her the marvellous marquise. And Mme. Derline--who was
twenty-two--raised herself a little to look in the glass. She exchanged
a slight smile with a young blonde, who was very pink and white.

"Ah," she said to herself, "if I were a marquise the man who wrote this
would perhaps have paid some attention to me, and my name would perhaps
be there. I