"Another couple is needed! We must have another couple here!"
The youth so gorgeously adorned with the apple-green kid gloves was anxious to do his part towards filling the vacancy, so, seeing two young girls still unengaged, he rushed forward to invite one of them, but instead of making his choice unhesitatingly, so as to spare the one that was left the petty humiliation of feeling herself weighed in the balance only to be found wanting, he stood for a few seconds as if undecided, and then selected Mlle. de Beaumesnil's neighbour, his preference being, doubtless, due to the greater showiness of her apparel.
Trivial as this incident seems, perhaps, it would be difficult to describe the intense anguish that wrung Mlle. de Beaumesnil's heart.
On seeing several of the other young girls invited in turn, Ernestine's natural modesty had excused the preference thus evinced, but in proportion as the number of her companions diminished, and when she at last found herself left alone with this unprepossessing companion, whose homeliness was not even redeemed by any pretensions to elegance of manner, her heart sank within her, but when she saw herself disdained, as it were, after having been compared with her companion, she experienced a terrible shock.
"Alas!" she said to herself, with infinite sadness, "if I cannot stand comparison with these young girls around me, and particularly with this last one, nobody can ever care for me, and any one who tries to convince me to the contrary must be—I see plainly now—actuated only by base and mercenary motives. All these young girls who have been preferred to me can, at least, feel assured that the preference is sincere,—there are no cruel doubts to mar the pleasure of their innocent triumph; but I—I shall never know even this slight happiness."
And Mlle. de Beaumesnil's grief at the thought was so poignant that she had all she could do to repress her tears.
But though these tears did not flow, her pale face betrayed such painful emotion that two generous-hearted people each noticed it in turn.
The quadrille was going on while mademoiselle abandoned herself to these gloomy reflections, and Olivier, who was dancing with Mlle. Hortense Herbaut, found himself directly opposite Ernestine, and thus in a position to observe the humiliating situation in which she was placed, as well as the almost heart-broken expression of her face. Olivier was so deeply touched that he asked:
"Who is that young lady sitting alone over there? I have never seen her here before, I think."
"No, M. Olivier, she is a stranger. One of mamma's friends brought her this evening."