you
see her? She is so pale you might fancy she was ill, delicate-looking,
and very small; there--now she is turning her head this way; her
almond-shaped blue eyes, so delightfully soft, look as if they were made
expressly for tears. Look, look! She is bending forward to see Madame
de Vaudremont below the crowd of heads in constant motion; the high
head-dresses prevent her having a clear view."

"I see her now, my dear fellow. You had only to say that she had the
whitest skin of all the women here; I should have known whom you meant.
I had noticed her before; she has the loveliest complexion I ever
admired. From hence I defy you to see against her throat the pearls
between the sapphires of her necklace. But she is a prude or a coquette,
for the tucker of her bodice scarcely lets one suspect the beauty of her
bust. What shoulders! what lily-whiteness!"

"Who is she?" asked the first speaker.

"Ah! that I do not know."

"Aristocrat!--Do you want to keep them all to yourself, Montcornet?"

"You of all men to banter me!" replied Montcornet, with a smile. "Do you
think you have a right to insult a poor general like me because, being
a happy rival of Soulanges, you cannot even turn on your heel without
alarming Madame de Vaudremont? Or is it because I came only a month ago
into the Promised Land? How insolent you can be, you men in office,
who sit glued to your chairs while we are dodging shot and shell! Come,
Monsieur le Maitre des Requetes, allow us to glean in the field of which
you can only have precarious possession from the moment when we evacuate
it. The deuce is in it! We have a right to live! My good friend, if you
knew the German women, you would, I believe, do me a good turn with the
Parisian you love best."

"Well, General, since you have vouchsafed to turn your attention to that
lady, whom I never saw till now, have the charity to tell me if you have
seen her dance."

"Why, my dear Martial, where have you dropped from? If you are ever sent
with an embassy, I have small hopes of your success. Do not you see a
triple rank of the most undaunted coquettes of Paris between her and the
swarm of dancing men that buzz under the chandelier? And was it not only
by the help of your eyeglass that you were able to discover her at all
in the corner by that pillar, where she seems buried in the gloom, in
spite of the candles blazing above her head? Between her and us there is
such a sparkle of diamonds and glances, so