“Oh yes,” said Newman; “I have heard of it; I remember now.  I have even been there.  And you want to go there?”

“It is silly, it is low, it is anything you please.  But I want to go.  Some of my friends have been, and they say it is awfully drole.  My friends go everywhere; it is only I who sit moping at home.”

“It seems to me you are not at home now,” said Newman, “and I shouldn’t exactly say you were moping.”

“I am bored to death.  I have been to the opera twice a week for the last eight years.  Whenever I ask for anything my mouth is stopped with that:  Pray, madam, haven’t you an opera box?  Could a woman of taste want more?  In the first place, my opera box was down in my contrat; they have to give it to me.  To-night, for instance, I should have preferred a thousand times to go to the Palais Royal.  But my husband won’t go to the Palais Royal because the ladies of the court go there so much.  You may imagine, then, whether he would take me to Bullier’s; he says it is a mere imitation—­and a bad one—­of what they do at the Princess Kleinfuss’s.  But as I don’t go to the Princess Kleinfuss’s, the next best thing is to go to Bullier’s.  It is my dream, at any rate, it’s a fixed idea.  All I ask of you is to give me your arm; you are less compromising than any one else.  I don’t know why, but you are.  I can arrange it.  I shall risk something, but that is my own affair.  Besides, fortune favors the bold.  Don’t refuse me; it is my dream!”

Newman gave a loud laugh.  It seemed to him hardly worth while to be the wife of the Marquis de Bellegarde, a daughter of the crusaders, heiress of six centuries of glories and traditions, to have centred one’s aspirations upon the sight of a couple of hundred young ladies kicking off young men’s hats.  It struck him as a theme for the moralist; but he had no time to moralize upon it.  The curtain rose again; M. de Bellegarde returned, and Newman went back to his seat.

He observed that Valentin de Bellegarde had taken his place in the baignoire of Mademoiselle Nioche, behind this young lady and her companion, where he was visible only if one carefully looked for him.  In the next act Newman met him in the lobby and asked him if he had reflected upon possible emigration.  “If you really meant to meditate,” he said, “you might have chosen a better place for it.”

“Oh, the place was not bad,” said Valentin.  “I was not thinking of that girl.  I listened to the music, and, without thinking of the play or looking at the stage, I turned over your proposal.  At first it seemed quite fantastic.  And then a certain fiddle in the orchestra—­I could distinguish it—­began to say as it scraped away, ‘Why not, why not?’ And then, in that rapid movement, all the fiddles took it up and the conductor’s stick seemed to beat it in the air:  ‘Why not, why not?’ I’m sure I can’t say!  I don’t see why not.  I don’t see why I shouldn’t do something.  It appears to me really a very bright