M. Girard took very good care not to make a single inquiry on this subject, resolving to tell his spouse that her dashing _casquette_ had excited the utmost admiration. He returned hastily to the box to inform her of the prince's fainting fit. He had scarcely opened the door, and said to Madame Girard, "My love----," than she, without allowing him to add another word, exclaimed,-- "Run as fast as you can to see what is the matter with the Prince de Hansfeld: they have carried him out, I understand, into the lobby in front of us." "But, my dearest----" "Go quick, I tell you----" "But, my life, I have come to----" "Go, I say, Timoléon." "I beg of you to hear me----." "Oh!--how tiresome you are! Pray, go as quickly as you can." "Why, I came in fact to tell you----" "That is not what I want to hear, it is about the prince. So once more go." "But, my dearest love, I have come to tell you the very thing you desire to know," exclaimed M. Girard, with intense volubility. "Oh! that's quite another thing. Come in and shut the door, and tell us all about it as quick as you can." "My love, you really will not give me time; and I----" "Pray speak--do speak." "Did the prince quite lose his consciousness?" inquired Bertha, with interest. "Of course the princess has gone away with him?" said De Brévannes. "Did they give him immediate assistance?" continued Madame Girard. "Timoléon, why don't you speak, and not stand there like a great _clod_, not opening your mouth?" "Why, I really cannot answer so many questions at once. From what I could gather in the crowd, some said the prince was just recovering from a very long illness, and the heat of the house had quite overcome him; others declared that it was another attack of lunacy which had come over him, although they had thought him completely cured; and there were others besides, who asserted that it was violent and sudden emotion which had caused his fainting." "Poor prince!--So young, and such a sufferer!" said Bertha to De Brévannes, with sympathy of tone. "All, even to his maladies, is a mystery!" "Ah! my dear Madame de Brévannes, how very interesting, isn't it?" cried Madame de Girard, with excitement. "What a pity we could not see him, for he was so completely concealed at the back of the box that we could not distinguish his features!" "I confess," said Bertha, "that I should have liked to have seen his face." M. de Brévannes frowned as he looked scrutinisingly in Bertha's face at the moment when she had manifested her interest for M. de Hansfeld, and awaited with some uneasiness the reply of Madame Girard, who added in a sentimental tone, "Admitting that the prince is as young, as handsome and interesting as he is, it is thus one would choose the fancied one, if we were young girls and mistress of his heart. Don't you think so, Madame de Brévannes?" "But, my love, I do not think I ever cross your inclination, and I----"