on?" she said, seeing him take his hat.

"I promised my sister to join her at the opera. Besides, this is your
reception night, and I leave you to your duties as hostess. To-morrow,
at the usual hour-and we will talk of something else, shall we not?"

"Ah, dearest, that is all I ask!" said Eugenie.

He attempted to kiss her hand, but she held up her lips. He pressed his
own upon them in a long kiss, and left her.

CHAPTER XV. DEFIANCE OF MRS. GRUNDY

For more than fifty years the first proscenium box on the ground floor,
to the left, at the Opera, had belonged exclusively to ten members of
the jockey Club, in the name of the oldest member of which the box is
taken. When a place becomes vacant through any cause, the nine remaining
subscribers vote on the admission of a new candidate for the vacant
chair; it is a sort of academy within the national Academy of Music.

When this plan was originated, that particular corner was called
"the infernal box," but the name has fallen into desuetude since the
dedication of the fine monument of M. Gamier. Nevertheless, as it is
counted a high privilege to be numbered among these select subscribers,
changes are rare among them; besides, the members are not, as a rule,
men in their first youth. They have seen, within those walls, the
blooming and the renewal of several generations of pretty women; and
the number of singers and dancers to whom they have paid court in the
coulisses is still greater.

From their post of observation nothing that occurs either before or
behind the curtain escapes their analysis--an analysis undoubtedly
benevolent on the part of men who have seen much of life, and who accord
willingly, to their younger fellow-members, a little of that indulgence
of which they stand in need themselves.

An event so unexpected as the enthronement of Zibeline in one of the
two large boxes between the columns, in company with the Duchesse de
Montgeron, Madame de Lisieux, and Madame de Nointel, did not escape
their observation and comment.

"The Duchess is never thoughtless in her choice of associates," said one
of the ten. "There must be some very powerful motive to induce her to
shield with her patronage a foreigner who sets so completely at defiance
anything that people may say about her."

"Nonsense! What is it, after all, that they say about this young woman?"
demanded the senior member of the party. "That she rides alone on
horseback. If she were to ride wi