s sonnets to Euphrasie--in
the day of Euphrasie--awakened the admiration of the sternest critics:
they were so tender, so full of purest fire! Some of the same critics
also could scarcely choose between these and his songs to Aglae in
her day, or Camille in hers. He is a young man of fine fancies, and
possesses the amiable quality of being invariably passionately in
earnest. As he was serious in his sentiments yesterday, so he will be
to-morrow, so he is to-day."

"To-day!" echoed Madame de Castro. "Nonsense!"

Madame Villefort did not seem to talk much. It was M. Ralph Edmondstone
who conversed, and that, too, with so much of the charm of animation
that it was pleasurable even to be a mere looker-on.

One involuntarily strained one's ears to catch a sentence,--he was
so eagerly absorbed, so full of rapid, gracefully unconscious and
unconventional gesture.

"I wonder what he is saying?" Madame de Castro was once betrayed into
exclaiming.

"Something metaphysical, about a poem, or a passage of music, or a
picture,--or perhaps his soul," returned M. Renard. "His soul is his
strong point,--he pets it and wonders at it. He puts it through its
paces. And yet, singularly enough, he is never ridiculous--only fanciful
and _naive_. It is his soul which so fascinates women."

Whether this last was true of other women or not, Madame Villefort
scarcely appeared fascinated. As she listened, her eyes still rested
upon his eager mobile face, but with a peculiar expression,--an
expression of critical attention, and yet one which somehow detracted
from her look of youth, as if she weighed his words as they fell from
his lips and classified them, without any touch of the enthusiasm which
stirred within himself.

Suddenly she rose from her seat ana addressed her husband, who
immediately rose also. Then she spoke to M. Edmondstone, and without
more ado, the three left the box,--the young beauty, a little oddly,
rather followed than accompanied by her companions,--at the recognition
of which circumstance Madame de Castro uttered a series of sharp
ejaculations of disapproval.

"Bah! Bah!" she cried. "She is too young for such airs!--as if she were
Madame l'Imperatrice herself! Take me to my carriage. I am tired also."

Crossing the pavement with M. Renard, they passed the carriage of the
Villeforts. Before its open door stood M. Villefort and Edmondstone, and
the younger man, with bared head, bent forward speaking to his cousin.