"Not on him so much, perhaps, as the world looks at this sort of thing, but on her. She's young, pretty, married to a man years her senior, a snuffy, frowzy old Frenchman. She's alone with her child and one or two servants from early morning till late evening, and with that weazened little monkey of a man the rest of the time. The only society she sees is the one or two gossipy old women of both sexes who live along the levee here. The only enjoyment she has is when she can get to her mother's up in town, or run up to the opera when she can get Lascelles to take her. That old mummy cares nothing for music and still less for the dance; she loves both, and so does Waring. _Monsieur le Mari_ goes out into the foyer between the acts to smoke his cigarette and gossip with other relics like himself. Waring has never missed a night she happened to be there for the last six weeks. I admit he is there many a time when she is not, but after he's had a few words with the ladies in the general's box, what becomes of him? I don't know, because I'm seldom there, but Dryden and Taggart and Jack Merton of the infantry can tell you. He is sitting by her in the D'Hervilly _loge grillee_ and going over the last act with her and rhapsodizing about Verdi, Bellini, Mozart, or Gounod,--Gounod especially and the garden-scene from 'Faust.'" "Isn't her mother with her, and, being in mourning, doesn't she have to stay in her latticed loge instead of promenading in the foyer and drinking that two-headaches-for-a-picayune punch?" queried Ferry, eager for a diversion. "Suppose she is," answered Pierce, stoutly. "I'm a crank,--strait-laced, if you like. It's the fault of my bringing up. But I know, and you know, that that little woman, in her loneliness and in her natural longing for some congenial spirit to commune with, is simply falling madly in love with Sam Waring, and there will be tragedy here before we can stop it." "See here, Pierce," asked Ferry, "do you suppose Mrs. Cram would be so loyal a friend to Waring if she thought there was anything wrong in his attentions to Madame Lascelles? Do you suppose Cram himself wouldn't speak?" "He has spoken." "He has? To whom?" "To me, three days ago; said I had known Waring longest and best, perhaps was his most intimate friend, and he thought I ought to warn him of what people were saying." "What have you done?" "Nothing yet: simply because I know Sam Waring so well that I know just what he'd do,--go and pull the nose of the man who gossiped about him and her. Then we'd have a fight on our hands." "Well, we can fight, I suppose, can't we?" "Not without involving a woman's name." "Oh, good Lord, Pierce, was there ever a row without a woman _au fond_?" "That's a worm-eaten witticism, Ferry, and you're too decent a fellow, as a rule, to be cynical. I've got to speak to Waring, and I don't know how to do it. I want your advice."