The next morning I returned to business affairs again. It was a particularly pressing morning. The steamer was in. I had not even time to think of my last night's experiences. Only at the corner of a street I met an acquaintance, whose smiling face amazed me. I knew that all last evening his mind had been preoccupied with the truly critical state of his affairs, and I was at a loss how to greet him. He hurried away from my embarrassment. I had more than one of these encounters; but it was not till the labors of the day were over that I understood how my knowledge of mankind had been lately increased. I went, in the evening, to a small party where I knew I should meet the Seymours. I fell in there with Aurelia first. She was as cold and as stately as ever. I entered into conversation with her, feeling that I could touch the key-note of her life. But no; she was as chilling to me as ever; nothing warmed her--nothing elicited from her the slightest spark. Sometimes she looked at me a little wonderingly, as if I were talking in some style unusual to me; as if my remarks were, in a manner, impertinent; but, in the end, I left her to her icy coldness. As for Lilly, she appeared to the world, in general, as gay as ever. I fancied I detected a slight listlessness as she accompanied her partner into the dancing-room for the sixth polka. It was no great help with me in talking to Annette, that I knew she was a fool. I won no thanks from Frank or Angelina when I manoeuvred that they should have a little flirtation in the library. For some reason they were determined that their engagement should not be apparent, and I was reproached afterwards by Frank for my clumsiness, and received, in return, no confidences to make up for the reproach. On the whole I passed a disagreeable evening. I had a feeling all the time that I was in the presence of smothered volcanoes, and a consciousness that I had the advantage of the rest of the world in knowing all its secret history. This became, at last, almost insupportable. There was no opera this night. The next day it was announced that Mademoiselle ---- would take her accustomed place in the performance. I went early to the theatre, and found, to my amazement, there had been some changes made in the orchestra; the prompter's box had been enlarged, and my newly-discovered niche had been rendered inaccessible and almost entirely filled in! In vain did I attempt to find some other position that might correspond to it. I only attracted the attention of the early comers to the theatre. I was obliged to return to my old position of an outside observer of life, and see, quite unoccupied, that centre of all observation which I had enjoyed myself so much two nights before; over which the leader of the orchestra was unconsciously waving his baton.