his ease near Madame de Vaudremont, he listened to her so
inattentively that he did not catch these words spoken behind her fan:

"Martial, you will oblige me this evening by not wearing that ring
that you snatched from me. I have my reasons, and will explain them to
you in a moment when we go away. You must give me your arm to go to
the Princess de Wagram's."

"Why did you come in with the Colonel?" asked the Baron.

"I met him in the hall," she replied. "But leave me now; everybody is
looking at us."

Martial returned to the Colonel of Cuirassiers. Then it was that the
little blue lady had become the object of the curiosity which agitated
in such various ways the Colonel, Soulanges, Martial, and Madame de
Vaudremont.

When the friends parted, after the challenge which closed their
conversation, the Baron flew to Madame de Vaudremont, and led her to a
place in the most brilliant quadrille. Favored by the sort of
intoxication which dancing always produces in a woman, and by the
turmoil of a ball, where men appear in all the trickery of dress,
which adds no less to their attractions than it does to those of
women, Martial thought he might yield with impunity to the charm that
attracted his gaze to the fair stranger. Though he succeeded in hiding
his first glances towards the lady in blue from the anxious activity
of the Countess' eyes, he was ere long caught in the fact; and though
he managed to excuse himself once for his absence of mind, he could
not justify the unseemly silence with which he presently heard the