While I listened indolently to the orchestra and the singers, I examined
the boxes with considerable interest, to discover what little
revolutions a decade could bring about in the aristocratic personnel of
the opera. A confused noise of words and some distinct sentences reached
my ear from the neighboring boxes when the orchestra was silent. I
listened involuntarily; the occupants were not talking secrets, their
conversation was in the domain of idle chat, that divides with the
libretto the attention of the habitues of the opera.

They said, "I could distinguish her in a thousand, I mistrust my sight a
little, but my glass is infallible; it is certainly Mlle. de
Bressuire--a superb figure, but she spoils her beauty by affectation."

"Your glass deceives you, my dear sir, we know Mlle. de Bressuire."

"Madame is right; it is not Mlle. That young lady at whom everybody is
gazing, and who to-night is the favorite--excuse the pun--of the opera,
is a Spaniard; I saw her at the Bois de Boulogne in M. Martinez de la
Hosa's carriage. They told me her name, but I have forgotten. I never
could remember names."

"Ladies," said a young man, who noisily entered the box, "we are at last
enlightened. I have just questioned the box-keeper--she is a maid of
honor to the Queen of Belgium."

"And her name?" demanded five voices.

"She has a Belgian name, unpronounceable by the box-keeper; something
like Wallen, or Meulen."