The second act of the opera was over. The applause, again renewed, had again subsided, and the hum of conversation replaced the crash of the noisy orchestra, the warbling of Duprez, and the passionate declamation of Madame Stolz. The house was very full; the boxes were crowded with elegantly dressed women, a few of them really pretty, a good many appearing so by the grace of gas, rouge, and costume. The curtain was no sooner down than de Mellay, compelled by the despotism of the pit to silence during the performance, dashed off at a colloquial canter, scattering, for his companion's benefit, a shower of criticisms, witticisms, and scandal, for which he found abundant subjects amongst his acquaintances in the theatre, and to which the baron listened with the curled lip and faint smile of one for whose palled palate caviar no longer has flavour, scarcely vouchsafing an occasional monosyllable or brief sentence when Arthur's gossip seemed to require reply. His eyes wandered round the house, their vision aided by the double glasses of one of those tremendous opera-telescopes by whose magnifying powers, it is said, the incipient wrinkle and the borrowed tint are infallibly detected, and the very _tricot_ of Taglioni is converted into a cobweb. Presently he touched the arm of Arthur, who had just commenced an animated ocular flirtation with a blue-eyed belle in a stage-box. The baron called his attention to a box on the opposite side of the theatre. "There is a curious group," he said. "Oh, yes," replied de Mellay carelessly, levelling his glass for a moment in the direction pointed out. "The Fatellos." And he resumed his mute correspondence with the dame of the azure eyes. Steinfeld remained for a short space silent, with the thoughtful puzzled air of a man who suspects he has forgotten something he ought to remember; but his efforts of memory were all in vain, and he again interrupted Arthur's agreeable occupation. "Whom did you say?" he inquired; indicating, by a glance rather than by a movement, the group that had riveted his attention. "The Fatellos," replied de Mellay, with a sort of surprise. "But, pshaw! I forget. You were at Venice last carnival, and they have not been twelve months at Paris. You have still to learn the affecting romance of Sigismund and Catalina: how the red knight from Franconie did carry off the Paynim's daughter,--his weapons adapted to the century--bank-notes and bright doubloons, in lieu of couched lance and trenchant blade. Why, when they arrived, all Paris talked of them for three days, and might have talked longer, had not Admiral Joinville brought over from Barbary two uncommonly large baboons, which diverted the public attention. They call them beauty and the beast--the Fatellos, I mean, not the baboons."