soothed every mortification, had turned into a lie.

At the opening of the second act a woman took up her position not very
far from Raphael, in a box that had been empty hitherto. A murmur of

admiration went up from the whole house. In that sea of human faces
there was a movement of every living wave; all eyes were turned upon

the stranger lady. The applause of young and old was so prolonged,
that when the orchestra began, the musicians turned to the audience to

request silence, and then they themselves joined in the plaudits and
swelled the confusion. Excited talk began in every box, every woman

equipped herself with an opera glass, elderly men grew young again,
and polished the glasses of their lorgnettes with their gloves. The

enthusiasm subsided by degrees, the stage echoed with the voices of
the singers, and order reigned as before. The aristocratic section,

ashamed of having yielded to a spontaneous feeling, again assumed
their wonted politely frigid manner. The well-to-dodislike to be

astonished at anything; at the first sight of a beautiful thing it
becomes their duty to discover the defect in it which absolves them

from admiring it,--the feeling of all ordinary minds. Yet a few still
remained motionless and heedless of the music, artlessly absorbed in

the delight of watching Raphael's neighbor.
Valentin noticed Taillefer's mean, obnoxious countenance by Aquilina's

side in a lower box, and received an approving smirk from him. Then he
saw Emile, who seemed to say from where he stood in the orchestra,

"Just look at that lovely creature there, close beside you!" Lastly,
he saw Rastignac, with Mme. de Nucingen and her daughter, twisting his

gloves like a man in despair, because he was tethered to his place,
and could not leave it to go any nearer to the unknown fair divinity.

Raphael's life depended upon a covenant that he had made with himself,
and had hitherto kept sacred. He would give no special heed to any

woman whatever; and the better to guard against temptation, he used a
cunningly contrived opera-glass which destroyed the harmony of the

fairest features by hideous distortions. He had not recovered from the
terror that had seized on him in the morning when, at a mere

expression of civility, the Magic Skin had contracted so abruptly. So
Raphael was determined not to turn his face in the direction of his

neighbor. He sat imperturbable as a duchess with his back against the
corner of the box, thereby shutting out half of his neighbor's view of

the stage, appearing to disregard her, and even to be unaware that a
pretty woman sat there just behind him.

His neighbor copied Valentin's position exactly; she leaned her elbow
on the edge of her box and turned her face in three-quarter profile

upon the singers on the stage, as if she were sitting to a painter.
These two people looked like two estranged lovers still sulking, still

turning their backs upon each other, who will go into each other's
arms at the first tender word.

Now and again his neighbor's ostrich feathers or her hair came in
contact with Raphael's head, giving him a pleasurable thrill, against

which he sternly fought. In a little while he felt the touch of the
soft frill of lace that went round her dress; he could hear the

gracious sounds of the folds of her dress itself, light rustling
noises full of enchantment; he could even feel her movements as she

breathed; with the gentle stir thus imparted to her form and to her
draperies, it seemed to Raphael that all her being was suddenly

communicated to him in an electric spark. The lace and tulle that
caressed him imparted the deliciouswarmth of her bare, white

shoulders. By a freak in the ordering of things, these two creatures,
kept apart by social conventions, with the abysses of death between

them, breathed together and perhaps thought of one another. Finally,
the subtle perfume of aloes completed the work of Raphael's

intoxication. Opposition heated his imagination, and his fancy, become
the wilder for the limits imposed upon it, sketched a woman for him in

outlines of fire. He turned abruptly, the stranger made a similar
movement, startled no doubt at being brought in contact with a

stranger; and they remained face to face, each with the same thought.
"Pauline!"

"M. Raphael!"
Each surveyed the other, both of them petrified with astonishment.

Raphael noticed Pauline's daintily simple costume. A woman's
experienced eyes would have discerned and admired the outlines beneath

the modest gauze folds of her bodice and the lily whiteness of her
throat. And then her more than mortalclearness of soul, her maidenly

modesty, her gracefulbearing, all were unchanged. Her sleeve was
quivering with agitation, for the beating of her heart was shaking her

whole frame.
"Come to the Hotel de Saint-Quentin to-morrow for your papers," she

said. "I will be there at noon. Be punctual."
She rose hastily, and disappeared. Raphael thought of following

Pauline, feared to compromise her, and stayed. He looked at Foedora;
she seemed to him positively ugly. Unable to understand a single

phrase of the music, and feeling stifled in the theatre, he went out,
and returned home with a full heart.

"Jonathan," he said to the old servant, as soon as he lay in bed,
"give me half a drop of laudanum on a piece of sugar, and don't wake

me to-morrow till twenty minutes to twelve."
"I want Pauline to love me!" he cried next morning, looking at the

talisman the while in unspeakable anguish.
The skin did not move in the least; it seemed to have lost its power

to shrink; doubtless it could not fulfil a wish fulfilled already.
"Ah!" exclaimed Raphael, feeling as if a mantle of lead had fallen

away, which he had worn ever since the day when the talisman had been
given to him; "so you are playing me false, you are not obeying me,

the pact is broken! I am free; I shall live. Then was it all a
wretched joke?" But he did not dare to believe in his own thought as

he uttered it.
He dressed himself as simply as had formerly been his wont, and set

out on foot for his old lodging, trying to go back in fancy to the
happy days when he abandoned himself without peril to vehement

desires, the days when he had not yet condemned all human enjoyment.
As he walked he beheld Pauline--not the Pauline of the Hotel Saint-

Quentin, but the Pauline of last evening. Here was the accomplished
mistress he had so often dreamed of, the intelligent young girl with

the loving nature and artistictemperament, who understood poets, who
understood poetry, and lived in luxurious surroundings. Here, in

short, was Foedora, gifted with a great soul; or Pauline become a
countess, and twice a millionaire, as Foedora had been. When he

reached the worn threshold, and stood upon the broken step at the
door, where in the old days he had had so many desperate thoughts, an

old woman came out of the room within and spoke to him.
"You are M. Raphael de Valentin, are you not?"

"Yes, good mother," he replied.
"You know your old room then," she replied; "you are expected up

there."
"Does Mme. Gaudin still own the house?" Raphael asked.

"Oh no, sir. Mme. Gaudin is a baroness now. She lives in a fine house
of her own on the other side of the river. Her husband has come back.

My goodness, he brought back thousands and thousands. They say she
could buy up all the Quartier Saint-Jacques if she liked. She gave me

her basement room for nothing, and the remainder of her lease. Ah,
she's a kind woman all the same; she is no more proud to-day than she

was yesterday."
Raphael hurried up the staircase to his garret; as he reached the last

few steps he heard the sounds of a piano. Pauline was there, simply
dressed in a cotton gown, but the way that it was made, like the

gloves, hat, and shawl that she had thrown carelessly upon the bed,
revealed a change of fortune.

"Ah, there you are!" cried Pauline, turning her head, and rising with
unconcealed delight.

Raphael went to sit beside her, flushed, confused, and happy; he
looked at her in silence.

"Why did you leave us then?" she asked, dropping her eyes as the flush
deepened on his face. "What became of you?"

"Ah, I have been very miserable, Pauline; I am very miserable still."
"Alas!" she said, filled with pitying tenderness. "I guessed your fate

yesterday when I saw you so well dressed, and apparently so wealthy;
but in reality? Eh, M. Raphael, is it as it always used to be with

you?"
Valentin could not restrain the tears that sprang to his eyes.