The fatigue of my journey, the heat of the salon, the confusion of my mind, and the bitter conflict of my feelings, all conspired to unman me, and I sank upon a sofa. As I sat thus unnoticed (for the tone of the Count’s manner had divested the few who were previously attentive of all interest for me), I overheard the conversation of those around me. But one name was mentioned, but one person seemed to engross every tongue or heart--that was La Mercia. From what I could collect it appeared that she, a most beautiful and interesting girl, had appeared at the Opera a few evenings since, and by the charms of her surpassing beauty, as well as the surprising richness and clearness of her voice, had captivated the whole city, from the palace to the cottage. The enthusiastic repetition of her praises gradually led to regrets for her absence, and surmises as to the cause, while a young nobleman, who had just joined the circle, said,-- “Trust me, La Mercia would have come if _she_ alone were consulted; but I fear that ill-tempered looking old fellow, whom she calls her ‘Dottore,’ has had much to say to this refusal.” “Yes,” said another; “so late as yesterday evening, at the palace, when she was surrounded by several members of the royal family, eagerly pressing her to repeat a song she had just sung,--just as she consented, a look from the ‘Dottore’ shot across the room and met her eyes; she immediately hesitated, begged to be permitted not to sing, and immediately afterwards withdrew.” “How strange!” said the nobleman who spoke before, “how very strange! It was but a few nights since, at the Opera, I witnessed the deference and submission with which she addressed him, and the cold indifference with which he met looks and heard tones that, would have made another’s heart beat beyond his bosom. It must, indeed, be a strange mystery that unites two beings so every way unlike;--one all beauty and loveliness, and the other the most sarcastic, treacherous-looking wretch, ever my eyes beheld.” The deep interest with which I listened to those particulars of my rival--for such I now felt her to be--gradually yielded to a sense of my own sunken and degraded condition; and envy, the most baleful and pernicious passion that can agitate the bosom, took entire possession of me: envy of one whose very existence one hour before I was ignorant of. I felt that _she--she_ had injured me,--robbed me of all for which life and existence was dear. But for _her_, I should still be the centre of this gay and brilliant assembly, by whom I am already forgotten and neglected: and, with a fiendish malignity, I thought how soon this new idol of a fickle and ungrateful people would fall from the pinnacle from which she had displaced me, and suffer in her own heart the cruel pangs I was then enduring.