Up to that moment he had felt a dislike to Rochebriant. That young noble's too obvious pride of race had nettled him, not the less that the financier himself was vain of his ancestry. Perhaps he still disliked Alain, but the dislike was now accompanied with a certain, not hostile, interest; and if he became connected with the race, the pride in it might grow contagious.
They had not been long in the ball-room before Alain came up to claim his promised partner. In saluting Duplessis, his manner was the same as usual, not more cordial, not less ceremoniously distant. A man so able as the financier cannot be without quick knowledge of the human heart.
"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."