While Corancez was speaking, the two young men had left their post of observation. He now led his companion toward the roulette rooms, adding these words, which made Hautefeuille quiver from head to foot:-- "If you have no objection we might look for Madame de Carlsberg, whom I left at one of these tables, and of whom I wish to take my leave. Fancy, she hates to have her friends near her while she is playing. But she must have lost all her money by this time." "Does she play very much?" asked Hautefeuille, who now had no more desire to leave his friend than at first he had to follow him. "As she does everything," Corancez answered, "capriciously and to beguile her _ennui_. And her marriage justifies her only too well. You know the prince? No? But you know his habits. Is it worth while to belong to the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, to be called the Archduke Henry Francis, and to have a wife like that, if one is to profess the opinions of an anarchist, and spend sixteen hours out of the twenty-four in a laboratory, burning one's hands and beard and eyes over furnaces, and receive the friends of the Baroness in the way he does?" "Then," said Hantefeuille, his arm trembling a little, as he asked his naïve question, "you think she is not happy?" "You have only to look at her," replied Corancez, who, rising on his toes, had just recognized Madame de Carlsberg. It was the one table that Pierre had not approached, on account of the crowd, which had been thicker around it than elsewhere. He signed to his companion that he was not tall enough to see over the mass of shoulders and heads; and Corancez, preceding his timid friend, began again to glide through the living wall of spectators, whose curiosity was evidently excited to the highest degree. The young men understood why, when, after several minutes of breathless struggling, they succeeded in gaining once more the place behind the croupier which they had had at the table of _trente-et-quarante_. There was taking place, in fact, one of those extraordinary events which become a legend on the coast and spread their fame through Europe and the two Americas; and Hautefeuille was shocked to discover that the heroine of this occasion was none else than the Baroness Ely, whose adorable name echoed in his heart with the sweetness of music. Yes, it was indeed Madame de Carlsberg who was the focus of all the eyes in this _blasé_ multitude, and she employed in the caprices of her extravagant play the same gentle yet imposing grace that had inspired the young man with his passionate idolatry. Ah, she was so proud even at this moment, and so beautiful. Her delicate bust, the only part of her body he could see, was draped in a corsage of violet silk, covered with a black plaited _mousseline de soie_, with sleeves of the same stuff which seemed to tremble at every movement. A set of Danube pearls, enormous and set with brilliants, formed a clasp