star of this happy season, she must be a very superior woman. Pickering
had the air of an ingenuous young philosopher sitting at the feet of an
austere muse, and not of a sentimental spendthrift dangling about some
supreme incarnation of levity.




CHAPTER II.


Madame Blumenthal seemed, for the time, to have abjured the Kursaal, and
I never caught a glimpse of her. Her young friend, apparently, was an
interesting study, and the studious mind prefers seclusion.

She reappeared, however, at last, one evening at the opera, where from my
chair I perceived her in a box, looking extremely pretty. Adelina Patti
was singing, and after the rising of the curtain I was occupied with the
stage; but on looking round when it fell for the _entr'acte_, I saw that
the authoress of "Cleopatra" had been joined by her young admirer. He
was sitting a little behind her, leaning forward, looking over her
shoulder and listening, while she, slowly moving her fan to and fro and
letting her eye wander over the house, was apparently talking of this
person and that. No doubt she was saying sharp things; but Pickering was
not laughing; his eyes were following her covert indications; his mouth
was half open, as it always was when he was interested; he looked
intensely serious. I was glad that, having her back to him, she was
unable to see how he looked. It seemed the proper moment to present
myself and make her my bow; but just as I was about to leave my place a
gentleman, whom in a moment I perceived to be an old acquaintance, came