This fever had begun in the train on the way back from Monte Carlo amid the party collected by Corancez. One of Chésy's remarks had started it.
"Is it true," Chésy asked of Marius, "that Baroness Ely lost this evening a hundred thousand francs, and that she sold her diamonds to one of the gamblers in order to continue?"
"How history is written!" Corancez responded. "I was there with Hautefeuille. She lost this evening just what she had gained, that is all; and she sold a trifling jewel worth a hundred louis,—a gold cigarette case."
"The one she always uses?" asked Navagero; then gayly, "I hope the Archduke will not hear this story. Although a democrat, he is severe on the question of good form."
"Who do you suppose would tell him?" Corancez replied.
"The aide-de-camp, parbleu," exclaimed Chésy. "He spies into everything she does, and if the jewel is gone, the Archduke will hear of it."
"Bah! She will buy it back to-morrow morning. Monte Carlo is full of these honest speculators. They, in fact, are the only ones who win at the game."
While Hautefeuille was listening to this dialogue, every word of which pierced to his heart, he caught a glance from the Marquise Bonnacorsi—a look of curiosity, full of meaning to the timid lover, for he plainly read in it the knowledge of his secret. The subject of the conversation immediately changed, but the words that had been spoken and the expression in Madame Bonnacorsi's eyes sufficed to fill the young man with a remorse as keen as though the precious box had been taken from the pocket of his evening coat, and shown to all these people.
"Could the Marquise have seen me buy it?" he asked himself, trembling from head to foot. "And if she saw me, what does she think?"
Then, as she entered into conversation with Florence Marsh, and appeared once more to be perfectly indifferent to his existence, "No, I am dreaming," he thought; "it is not possible that she saw me. I was careful to observe the people who were there. I was mistaken. She looked at me in that fixed way of hers which means nothing. I was dreaming. But what the others said was not a dream. This cigarette case she will wish to buy back to-morrow. She will find the merchant. He will tell her that he has sold it. He will describe me. If she recognizes me from his description?"