The two friends now had to part with a cordial grasp of hands. The
introductory tune, warning the ladies to form in squares for a fresh
quadrille, cleared the men away from the space they had filled while
talking in the middle of the large room. This hurried dialogue had
taken place during the usual interval between two dances, in front of
the fireplace of the great drawing-room of Gondreville's mansion. The
questions and answers of this very ordinary ballroom gossip had been
almost whispered by each of the speakers into his neighbor's ear. At
the same time, the chandeliers and the flambeaux on the chimney-shelf
shed such a flood of light on the two friends that their faces,
strongly illuminated, failed, in spite of their diplomatic discretion,
to conceal the faint expression of their feelings either from the
keen-sighted countess or the artless stranger. This espionage of
people's thoughts is perhaps to idle persons one of the pleasures they
find in society, while numbers of disappointed numskulls are bored
there without daring to own it.



Fully to appreciate the interest of this conversation, it is necessary
to relate an incident which would presently serve as an invisible
bond, drawing together the actors in this little drama, who were at
present scattered through the rooms.

At about eleven o'clock, just as the dancers were returning to their
seats, the company had observed the entrance of the handsomest woman
in Paris, the queen of fashion, the only person wanting to the
brilliant assembly. She made it a rule never to appear till the moment
when a party had reached that pitch of excited movement which does not
allow the women to preserve much longer the freshness of their faces