Josephine pouted, and unwillingly conceded a couple of inches.

“I wish I had brought the little telescope you gave me last Sunday,” said she, presently.  “There is a gentleman with one down there in the stalls.”

“A telescope at the opera—­the gods forbid!  Here, however, is my opera-glass, if you like to use it.”

Josephine turned it over curiously, and peeped first through one tube and then through the other.

“Which ought I to look through?” asked she.

“Both, of course.”

“Both!  How can I?”

“Why thus—­as you look through a pair of spectacles.”

“Ciel! I can’t manage that!  I can never look through anything without covering up one eye with my hand.”

“Then I think you had better be contented with your own charming eyes, ma belle” said I, nervously.  “How do you like your bouquet?”

Josephine sniffed at it as if she were taking snuff, and pronounced 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!”

“Hush! 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 fashion-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 glass 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.