Though the duchess was deeply interested in her polka and the dancers, she turned her head involuntarily several times on hearing the door open, but on seeing the persons who entered, she seemed rather to reproach herself for her inattention to the business in hand. The door opened again, and again Herminie cast a quick, almost impatient glance in that direction. The newcomer this time was Olivier, the commander's nephew. Seeing the young soldier leave the door open as if some one was following him, Herminie blushed slightly, and ventured another glance. But alas! in the doorway behind him there appeared a stout, rosy youth of eighteen, with an honest, artless face, and hands encased in green kid gloves. It is difficult to say why Herminie seemed a little disappointed on the entrance of this youth,--perhaps it was because she hated green kid gloves,--but the disappointment betrayed itself in a charming pout and in the increasing vivacity of the strains to which her little foot was impatiently beating time. The polka ended, Herminie, who had been at the piano ever since the beginning of the evening, was immediately surrounded, and thanked and complimented and furthermore invited to dance by a number of the young men, but she filled the souls of the aspirants with despair by pleading a slight lameness as an excuse for not dancing that evening. And you should have seen the gait Herminie adopted, in support of this atrocious falsehood, decided upon the minute she saw Olivier come in alone! Certainly no wounded dove ever dragged her little pink foot along with a more distressed air. Inconsolable at this accident which deprived them of the much coveted pleasure of dancing with the duchess, the aspirants, hoping for some compensation, offered their arm to the interesting cripple, but she had the cruelty to prefer the support of Madame Herbaut's eldest daughter, and repaired with her to that lady's room to rest and get a little fresh air, she said, as the windows of that apartment overlooked Commander Bernard's garden. Herminie had hardly left the room, leaning on Hortense Herbaut's arm, when Mlle. de Beaumesnil arrived, accompanied by Madame Laine. The richest heiress in France wore a dress of simple white muslin, with a narrow blue sash, and her entrance was unnoticed, though it occurred during the interval between two quadrilles. Ernestine was not pretty, neither was she ugly, so no one paid the slightest attention to her; and as the young girl compared this reception with the flattering eagerness with which people had crowded around her heretofore, her heart sank, and she began to realise the truth of M. de Maillefort's words. "They knew my name at the other entertainments," Ernestine said to herself, "and it was only the heiress that they gazed at, and flattered, and besieged with attentions." * * * * *