eighbors than with the opera. She aroused M. Renard to a secret ecstasy
of mirth by the sharp steadiness of her observation of the inmates of
the box opposite to them. She talked about them, too, in a tone not too
well modulated, criticising the beautifully dressed little woman,
her hair, her eyes, her Greek nose and mouth, and, more than all, her
indifferent expression and her manner of leaning upon the edge of her
box and staring at the stage as if she did not care for, and indeed
scarcely saw, what was going on upon it.

"That is the way with your American beauties," she said. "They have no
respect for things. Their people spoil them--their men especially.
They consider themselves privileged to act as their whims direct. They
have not the gentle timidity of Frenchwomen. What French girl would have
the _sang froid_ to sit in one of the best boxes of the Nouvelle Opera
and regard, with an actual air of _ennui_, such a performance as this?
She does not hear a word that is sung."

"And we--do we hear?" bantered M. Renard.

"_Pouf!_" cried Madame. "We! We are world-dried and weather-beaten. We
have not a worm-eaten emotion between us. I am seventy, and you, who are
thirty-five, are the elder of the two. Bah I At that girl's age I had
the heart of a dove."

"But that is long ago," murmured M. Renard, as if to himself. It
was quite human that he should slightly resent being classed with an
unamiable grenadier of seventy.

"Yes!" with considerable asperity. "Fifty years!" Then, with harsh
voice and withered face melted suddenly into softness quite _naive, "Mon
Dieu!_" she said, "Fifty years since Arsene whispered into my ear at my
first opera, that he saw tears in my eyes!"

It was at this instant that there appeared in the Villefort box a new
figure,--that of a dark, slight young man of graceful movements,--in
fact, a young man of intensely striking appearance. M. Villefort rose
to receive him with serious courtesy, but the pretty American was not so
gracious. Not until he had seated himself at her side and spoken to her
did she turn her head and permit her eyes simply to rest upon his face.

M. Renard smiled again.

"Enter," he remarked in a low tone,--"enter M. Ralph Edmondstone, the
cousin of Madame."

His companion asked no questions, but he proceeded, returning to his
light and airy tone:--

"M. Ralph Edmondstone is a genius," he said. "He is an artist, he is a
poet, he is also a writer of subtile prose. Hi