“If disposed to fall in love with Valerie,” thought Duplessis, “he would have taken more pains to please her father. Well, thank heaven, there are better matches to be found for her than a noble without fortune and a Legitimist without career.”
In fact, Alain felt no more for Valerie than for any other pretty girl in the room. In talking with the Vicomte de Braze in the intervals of the dance, he had made some passing remark on her beauty. De Braze had said, “Yes, she is charming; I will present you,” and hastened to do so before Rochebriant even learned her name. So introduced, he could but invite her to give him her first disengaged dance, and when that was fixed, he had retired, without entering into conversation.
Now, as they took their places in the quadrille, he felt that effort of speech had become a duty, if not a pleasure; and of course, he began with the first commonplace which presented itself to his mind.
“Do you not think it a very pleasant ball, Mademoiselle?”
“Yes,” dropped, in almost inaudible reply, from Valerie’s rosy lips.
“And not over-crowded, as most balls are?”
Valerie’s lips again moved, but this time quite inaudibly. The obligations of the figure now caused a pause. Alain racked his brains and began,
“They tell me the last season was more than usually gay; of that I cannot judge, for it was well-nigh over when I came to Paris for the first time.”
Valerie looked up with a more animated expression than her childlike face had yet shown, and said, this time distinctly, “This is my first ball, Monsieur le Marquis.”
“One has only to look at Mademoiselle to divine that fact,” replied Alain, gallantly.