M. de Hansfeld felt himself attracted towards this young female by the mysterious and powerful sympathy of suffering. He was almost grateful to her for being, like himself, a stranger to the noise, stir, and joyous bustle of this brilliant audience, and, wishing to judge if Bertha's features corresponded with the favourable impression she created, he raised his lorgnette. At this moment Madame de Lormoy turned towards him:-- "Well, prince, how do you find yourself?" "I thank you, madame!" replied the prince in French, and without any foreign accent, but in a low, faint voice, "I feel very well." "Perhaps the light hurts you a little, dear?" said the princess to her husband. "Rather, but I must get accustomed to it,--I am about to become such a gay fellow!" he added, with a smile. "Well, then, prince," continued Madame de Lormoy, "there is nothing like stirring about as a remedy for nervous complaints. I only advise you to try the most agreeable recreation, and Madame de Hansfeld is with you." "It is she, on the contrary, who requires recreation," said the prince, kindly; "but I have much trouble in inducing her to go into society now and then." "Alas! prince, my nephew, De Morville, is just the same, and I am always scolding him; my poor sister, his mother, has been an invalid so long, and he has nursed her so affectionately, that he really quite keeps away from the world. _Dieu merci!_ She is getting better now, but my nephew still insists on his absurd retirement. He has become whimsical and capricious, and I have been obliged to make his excuses to you, my dear princess, for, after having asked me the favour of being presented to you, his savage taste has resumed its ascendancy, and he has made the excuse of his retirement from the world to renounce a favour at first so eagerly requested." Madame de Hansfeld remained quite unmoved by this allusion to De Morville, whom she had for some time seen in the orchestra stalls, and replied with a smile,-- "I have heard this singularity of M. de Morville accounted for in a very romantic manner--allusions to an affair of the heart very deeply seated--a fidelity which does not belong to our times." "And I believe with truth. Aunts ought always to feign ignorance of these lovers' weaknesses, and but for that I should boast of the heroic constancy of my nephew. Ah! there he is!--in the stalls!" said Madame de Lormoy who had discovered De Morville. "Monsieur de Fierval, since Léon will not see me, have the kindness to go to him, and say I am here--this time he shall not escape us." M. de Fierval, who had been paying his respects to Madame de Lormoy and the princess, instantly quitted the box in obedience to the request of De Morville's aunt. "But really, madame," said Madame de Hansfeld, with a laugh, when De Fierval had left the box, "I should be quite vexed to catch M. de Morville in a net of this sort, and thus surprise him into an introduction which he may desire to avoid."