Mme. de Bargeton, enthralled, dazzled, and fascinated by her cousin’s manner, wit, and acquaintances, had suddenly declared herself a votary of the idol of the day. She had discerned the signs of the occult power exerted by the ambitious great lady, and told herself that she could gain her end as the satellite of this star, so she had been outspoken in her admiration. The Marquise was not insensible to the artlessly admitted conquest. She took an interest in her cousin, seeing that she was weak and poor; she was, besides, not indisposed to take a pupil with whom to found a school, and asked nothing better than to have a sort of lady-in-waiting in Mme. de Bargeton, a dependent who would sing her praises, a treasure even more scarce among Parisian women than a staunch and loyal critic among the literary tribe. The flutter of curiosity in the house was too marked to be ignored, however, and Mme. d’Espard politely endeavored to turn her cousin’s mind from the truth. “If any one comes to our box,” she said, “perhaps we may discover the cause to which we owe the honor of the interest that these ladies are taking——” “I have a strong suspicion that it is my old velvet gown and Angoumoisin air which Parisian ladies find amusing,” Mme. de Bargeton answered, laughing. “No, it is not you; it is something that I cannot explain,” she added, turning to the poet, and, as she looked at him for the first time, it seemed to strike her that he was singularly dressed. “There is M. du Châtelet,” exclaimed Lucien at that moment, and he pointed a finger towards Mme. de Sérizy’s box, which the renovated beau had just entered. Mme. de Bargeton bit her lips with chagrin as she saw that gesture, and saw besides the Marquise’s ill-suppressed smile of contemptuous astonishment. “Where does the young man come from?” her look said, and Louise felt humbled through her love, one of the sharpest of all pangs for a Frenchwoman, a mortification for which she cannot forgive her lover. In these circles where trifles are of such importance, a gesture or a word at the outset is enough to ruin a newcomer. It is the principal merit of fine manners and the highest breeding that they produce the effect of a harmonious whole, in which every element is so blended that nothing is startling or obtrusive. Even those who break the laws of this science, either through ignorance or carried away by some impulse, must comprehend that it is with social intercourse as with music, a single discordant note is a complete negation of the art itself, for the harmony exists only when all its conditions are observed down to the least particular. “Who is that gentleman?” asked Mme. d’Espard, looking towards Châtelet. “And have you made Mme. de Sérizy’s acquaintance already?” “Oh! is that the famous Mme. de Sérizy who has had so many adventures and yet goes everywhere?”