“Comedy is no longer there,” he said, nodding at the stage; “it is here, in you.” He took his opera-glass and looked about the theatre to recover countenance. “You are not angry with me, I hope?” said the marquise, giving him a sidelong glance. “I should have had your secret somehow. Let us make peace. Come and see me; I receive every Wednesday, and I am sure the dear countess will never miss an evening if I let her know you will be there. So I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes between four and five o’clock, and I’ll be kind and add you to the little set of favorites I admit at that hour.” “Ah!” cried Raoul, “how the world judges; it calls you unkind.” “So I am when I need to be,” she replied. “We must defend ourselves. But your countess I adore; you will be contented with her; she is charming. Your name will be the first engraved upon her heart with that infantine joy that makes a lad cut the initials of his love on the barks of trees.” Raoul was aware of the danger of such conversations, in which a Parisian woman excels; he feared the marquise would extract some admission from him which she would instantly turn into ridicule among her friends. He therefore withdrew, prudently, as Lady Dudley entered. “Well?” said the Englishwoman to the marquise, “how far have they got?” “They are madly in love; he has just told me so.” “I wish he were uglier,” said Lady Dudley, with a viperish look at Comte Felix. “In other respects he is just what I want him: the son of a Jew broker who died a bankrupt soon after his marriage; but the mother was a Catholic, and I am sorry to say she made a Christian of the boy.” This origin, which Nathan thought carefully concealed, Lady Dudley had just discovered, and she enjoyed by anticipation the pleasure she should have in launching some terrible epigram against Vandenesse. “Heavens! I have just invited him to my house!” cried Madame d’Espard. “Didn’t I receive him at my ball?” replied Lady Dudley. “Some pleasures, my dear love, are costly.” The news of the mutual attachment between Raoul and Madame de Vandenesse circulated in the world after this, but not without exciting denials and incredulity. The countess, however, was defended by her friends, Lady Dudley, and Mesdames d’Espard and de Manerville, with an unnecessary warmth that gave a certain color to the calumny.