-chairs with a rapidity of reparation which did
not exhaust itself till he had entreated them with every circumstance of
civility to excuse an incident so mortifying to him. But with all his
haste he lost so much time in this that he had little left to show them
through the theatre, and their presentation to the prima donna was
reduced to the obeisances with which they met and parted as she went upon
the stage at the lifting of the curtain. In the lack of a common language
this was perhaps as well as a longer interview; and nothing could have
been more honorable than their dismissal at the hands of the gendarme who
had received them so stormily. He opened the door for them, and stood
with his fingers to his cap saluting, in the effect of being a whole file
of grenadiers.

XLIII.

At the same moment Burnamy bowed himself out of the box where he had been
sitting with the ladies during the absence of the gentlemen. He had
knocked at the door almost as soon as they disappeared, and if he did not
fully share the consternation which his presence caused, he looked so
frightened that Mrs. March reserved the censure which the sight of him
inspired, and in default of other inspiration treated his coming simply
as a surprise. She shook hands with him, and then she asked him to sit
down, and listened to his explanation that he had come back to Carlsbad
to write up the birthnight festivities, on an order from the Paris-New
York Chronicle; that he had seen them in the box and had ventured to took
in. He was pale, and so discomposed that the heart of justice was
softened more and more in Mrs. March's breast, and she left him to the
talk that sprang up, by an admirable effect of tact in the young lady,
between him and Miss Triscoe.

After all, she decided, there was nothing criminal in his being in
Carlsbad, and possibly in the last analysis there was nothing so very
wicked in his being in her box. One might say that it was not very nice
of him after he had gone away under such a cloud; but on the other hand
it was nice, though in a different way, if he longed so much to see Miss
Triscoe that he could not help coming. It was altogether in his favor
that he was so agitated, though he was momently becoming less agitated;
the young people were beginning to laugh at the notion of Mr. March and
General Triscoe going behind the scenes. Burnamy said he envied them the
chance; and added, not very relevantly, that he had come from Baire