At first, Bob, I thought that the glances might have been meant for another. I turned and looked around me, ready to fasten a deadly quarrel upon him, whom I should have regarded at once as my greatest enemy. But the company amidst which I stood soon reassured me. A few snuffy-looking old counts, with brown wigs and unshaven chins,--a stray Government clerk with a pinchbeck chain and a weak moustache, couldn't be my rivals. I looked again, but she had turned away her bead; and save that the "lorgnette" still rested within her fingers, I'd have thought the whole a vision. Three nights after this the same thing occurred. I had taken care to resume the very same place each evening, to wear the same dress, to stand in the very same attitude,--a very touching "pose," which I had practised before the glass. I had not been more than two hours at my post, when she turned abruptly round and stared full at me. There could be no mistake, no misconception whatever; for, as if to confirm my wavering doubts, her friend took the glass from her, and looked full and long at me. You may imagine, Bob, somewhat of the preoccupation of my faculties when I tell you that I never so much as recognized her friend. I had thoughts, eyes, ears, and senses for one,--and one only. Judge, then, my astonishment when she saluted me, giving that little gesture with the hand your Florentines are such adepts in,--a species of salutation so full of most expressive meaning. Short of a crow-quilled billet, neatly endorsed with her name, nothing could have spoken more plainly. It said, in a few words, "Come up here, Jim, we shall be delighted to see you." I accepted the augury, Bob, as we used to say in Virgil, and in less than a minute had forced my passage through the dense crowd of the pit, and was mounting the box stairs, five steps at a spring. "Whose box is No. 19?" said I to an official. "Madame de Goranton," was the reply. Awkward this; never had heard the name before; sounded like French; might be Swiss; possibly Belgian. No time for debating the point, tapped and entered,--several persons within barring up the passage to the front,--suddenly heard a well-known voice, which accosted me most cordially, and, to my intense surprise, saw before me Mrs. Gore Hampton! You know already all about her, Bob, and I need not recapitulate. "I fancied you were going to pass your life in distant adoration yonder, Mr. Dodd," said she, laughingly, while she tendered her hand for me to kiss. "Adeline, dearest, let me present to you my friend Mr. Dodd." A very cold--an icy recognition was the reply to this speech; and Adeline opened her fan, and said something behind it to an elderly dandy beside her, who laughed, and said, "Parfaitement, ma foi!"