And during the applause that followed the song she glanced round the theatre, when by accident her eye fell upon a group of gentlemen standing just at the entrance to the stalls. She noticed how they stared at her box, and with her graceful languor she was about to draw back a little, when she saw one of them look at her with a smile of recognition. For a moment she looked at him with wide-opened eyes, and in her surprise did not return the salutation, but with a quick movement she turned round, laid her hand on Betsy’s shoulder, and whispered in her ear—
“Just look, Betsy; do you see who is standing there?”
“Where? who?”
“There, in the stalls—Vincent—don’t you see?”
“Vincent!” Betsy repeated, amazed in her turn. “So it is, Vincent!”
They both nodded to Vincent, who laughingly fixed them with his glass, upon which Eline hid her face coquettishly behind her fan.
“Who is it? who is Vincent?” asked Emilie and Georges.
“Vincent Vere, a first cousin,” Betsy answered. “Oh, such a silly boy; nobody ever knows where he is; sometimes you don’t see him for months at a time, then all at once he stands before you again. I had no idea at all that he was at the Hague. Eline, for gracious sake, don’t fidget so with that fan.”
“I don’t want him to stare at me,” said Eline; and with a graceful turn of her shapely arm she held her fan before her face.
“When did you see your cousin last, Madame van Raat?” asked Georges.