"Lovely mask, I will own that I do greatly admire the Princess de Hansfeld; but I am too humble an individual to have the slightest pretension to be noticed by her."
"Ah, indeed, what a formal and respectful tone! why one would say that you were in hopes that the princess would hear you!"
"I never speak of Madame de Hansfeld but with that respect with which she inspires all the world!" was M. de Fierval's reply.
"Perhaps you think I am the princess?"
"To make that possible, charming mask, you require her figure, which you certainly have not yet attained."
"Madame de Hansfeld at an Opera-ball!" said one of the loungers of the group that surrounded the domino; "that would, indeed, be something singular!"
"Why so?" inquired the domino.
"She lives too far off—at the Hôtel Lambert, fronting the Ile Louviers—almost as far off as London."
"That jest on the forsaken quarters is worn threadbare," replied the domino. "The truth is, that Madame de Hansfeld is too great a prude to be guilty of such a folly; she whom one sees every day at church—"
"But the Opera-ball was only invented in order that once a-year, at least, it should conceal the folly of prudes," said a new comer who had mingled with the circle unnoticed.