here, in you."

He took his opera-glass and looked about the theatre to recover
countenance.

"You are not angry with me, I hope?" said the marquise, giving him a
sidelong glance. "I should have had your secret somehow. Let us make
peace. Come and see me; I receive every Wednesday, and I am sure the
dear countess will never miss an evening if I let her know you will be
there. So I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes between four and
five o'clock, and I'll be kind and add you to the little set of
favorites I admit at that hour."

"Ah!" cried Raoul, "how the world judges; it calls you unkind."

"So I am when I need to be," she replied. "We must defend ourselves.
But your countess I adore; you will be contented with her; she is
charming. Your name will be the first engraved upon her heart with
that infantine joy that makes a lad cut the initials of his love on
the barks of trees."

Raoul was aware of the danger of such conversations, in which a
Parisian woman excels; he feared the marquise would extract some
admission from him which she would instantly turn into ridicule among
her friends. He therefore withdrew, prudently, as Lady Dudley entered.

"Well?" said the Englishwoman to the marquise, "how far have they
got?"

"They are madly in love; he has just told me so."