After examining with his opera glass every corner of the theatre, from the pit to the roof, the Captain at last caught sight of a group, snugly installed in a comfortable box, which at once fixed his attention. It consisted of Monsieur and Madame Bouchereau, in front, and of Doctor Magnian, seated behind the lady. The appearance and attitude of these three persons were characteristic. With his usual pallid complexion and unhappy look, his eyes adorned with a pair of blue spectacles--a new embellishment, which he owed to an imaginary ophthalmia--the pacific husband whiled away the _entr'acte_ by the study of a play-bill, which he abandoned when the curtain rose, to bestow his deepest attention on the actors, even though none but the inferior characters were on the stage. Madame Bouchereau trifled with an elegant nosegay, whose perfume she frequently inhaled, and whose crimson flowers contrasted so well with the fairness of her complexion, as to justify a suspicion that there was some coquetry in the manoeuvre executed with such apparent negligence. Leaning back in her chair, she frequently turned her head, the better to hear Magnian's smiling and half-whispered remarks. The husband paid no attention to their conversation, and did not seem to remark its intimate and confidential character. "Who is it you have been looking at for the last quarter of an hour?" inquired one of the Captain's comrades. "At your old flame, Madame Bouchereau? I thought you had forgotten her long ago." "I did not know she had returned from Nice," replied Pelletier, with a reserved air. "She has been at Paris a fort-night." "Does not Bouchereau look very ill? The southern climate has not done him much good. He is twice as pale as before he went. Poor Bouchereau!" "Ha! ha!" laughed the officer, "have you been gulled by the story of the decline? That is really too good." "What is too good?" asked the Captain abruptly. "The trick that rogue Magnian played Bouchereau and you; for if I may judge from your astonished look, you also have been mystified." "Berton, you abuse my patience," said Pelletier in a surly tone.