do, Miss Duran," he said, having made his way to her box.

"Where did you drop from?" she asked, in surprise, giving him her
hand.

"The skies," he returned, with forced lightness.

"A fallen angel!" commented Susan.

"Good! Charming!" cried the marquis, clapping his withered hands.

"Miss Duran, the Marquis de Ligne has requested the pleasure of
meeting you."

She flashed a smile at him. He bent over her hand; held it a moment in
his icy grasp.

"The pleasure," said Susan, prettily, not shirking the ordeal, "is
mine."

"In which case," added Mauville, half ironically, "I will leave you
together to enjoy your happiness."

Eagerly availing himself of the place offered at her side, soon the
marquis was cackling after the manner of a senile beau of the old
school; relating spicy anecdotes of dames who had long departed this
realm of scandal; and mingling witticism and wickedness in one
continual flow, until like a panorama another age was revived in his
words--an age when bedizened women wore patches and their perfumed
gallants wrote verses on the demise of their lap-dogs; when "their
virtue resembled a statesman's religion, the Quaker's word, the
gamester's oath and the great man's honor--but to cheat those that
trusted them!"

The day's events, however, were soon over; the city of pleasure
finally capitulated; its people began rapidly to depart. That sudden
movement resembled the migration of a swarm of bees to form a new
colony, when, if the day be bright, the expedition issues forth with
wondrous rapidity. So this human hive commenced to empty itself of
queens, drones and workers. It was an outgoing wave of such life and
animation as is apparent in the flight of a swarm of cell-dwellers,
giving out a loud and sharp-toned hum from the action of their wings
as they soar over the blooming heather and the "bright consummate
flowers." And these human bees had their passions, too! their
massacres; their tragedies; their "Rival Queens"; their combats; their
sentinels; their dreams of that Utopian form of government realized in
the communistic society of insects.

"How did you enjoy it, my dear?" asked Barnes, suddenly reappearing at
Constance's box. "A grand heat, that! Though I did bet on the wrong
horse! But don't wait for us, Saint-Prosper. Mrs. Adams and I will
take our time getting through the crowd. I will see you at the hotel,
my dear!" he added, as the soldier and Constance moved away.

Only the merry