"Poor prince!—So young, and such a sufferer!" said Bertha to De Brévannes, with sympathy of tone. "All, even to his maladies, is a mystery!"
"Ah! my dear Madame de Brévannes, how very interesting, isn't it?" cried Madame de Girard, with excitement. "What a pity we could not see him, for he was so completely concealed at the back of the box that we could not distinguish his features!"
"I confess," said Bertha, "that I should have liked to have seen his face."
M. de Brévannes frowned as he looked scrutinisingly in Bertha's face at the moment when she had manifested her interest for M. de Hansfeld, and awaited with some uneasiness the reply of Madame Girard, who added in a sentimental tone, "Admitting that the prince is as young, as handsome and interesting as he is, it is thus one would choose the fancied one, if we were young girls and mistress of his heart. Don't you think so, Madame de Brévannes?"
"But, my love, I do not think I ever cross your inclination, and I——"
"Really, Timoléon, I hope you have never had the pretension to be a 'fancied one,' an ideal being?"
"I have no pretension to be an ideal being, my dear; but——"
"Silence! the curtain is going up."
M. Girard was silent.
Bertha and Madame Girard again lent all their attention to the last act of the comedy; and De Brévannes, whose features grew darker and darker, cast, from time to time, strange looks on his wife; his absurd jealousy was alarmed at the interest which Bertha had shewn when speaking of the sufferings of the prince, whose features she had not even seen.