Part 35 (1/2)

Josephine sniffed at it as if she were taking snuff, and p.r.o.nounced it perfect. Just then the opera began. I withdrew into the shade, and Josephine was silenced for a while in admiration of the scenery and the dresses. By and by, she began to yawn.

”Ah, _mon Dieu!_” said she, ”when will they have done singing? I have not heard a word all this time.”

”But everything is sung, _ma chere_, in an opera.”

”What do you mean? Is there no play?”

”This is the play; only instead of speaking their words, they sing them.”

Josephine shrugged her shoulders.

”Ah, bah!” said she. ”How stupid! I had rather have seen the _Closerie des Genets_ at the Graiete, if that is to be the case the whole evening.

Oh, dear! there is such a pretty lady come into the opposite box, in such a beautiful blue _glace_, trimmed with black velvet and lace!”

”Hus.h.!.+ you must not talk while they are singing!”

”_Tiens!_ it is no pleasure to come out and be dumb. But do just see the lady in the opposite box! She looks exactly as if she had walked out of a fas.h.i.+on-book.”

”My dear child, I don't care one pin to look at her,” said I, preferring to keep as much out of sight as possible. ”To admire your pretty face is enough for me.”

Josephine squeezed my hand affectionately.

”That is just as Emile used to talk to me,” said she.

I felt by no means flattered.

”_Regardez done!_” said she, pulling me by the sleeve, just as I was standing up, a little behind her chair, looking at the stage. ”That lady in the blue _glace_ never takes her eyes from our box! She points us out to the gentleman who is with her--do look!”

I turned my gla.s.s in the direction to which she pointed, and recognised Madame de Marignan!

I turned hot and cold, red and white, all in one moment, and shrank back like a snail that has been touched, or a sea-anemone at the first dig of the naturalist.

”Does she know you?” asked Josephine.

”I--I--probably--that is to say--I have met her in society.”

”And who is the gentleman?”

That was just what I was wondering. It was not Delaroche. It was no one whom I had ever seen before. It was a short, fat, pale man, with a bald head, and a ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

”Is he her husband?” pursued Josephine.

The suggestion flashed upon me like a revelation. Had I not heard that M. de Marignan was coming home from Algiers? Of course it was he. No doubt of it. A little vulgar, fat, bald man.... Pshaw, just the sort of a husband that she deserved!

”How she looks at me!” said Josephine.

I felt myself blush, so to speak, from head to foot.