But neither the dance, nor the desire to please one of the handsomest men at court, nor anything else could divert Mathilde. It was impossible to be more popular. She was queen of the ball, which fact she took in coldly.

"What a dull life I shall lead with a fellow like Croisenois!' she said to herself as he led her back to her place an hour later. "Where lies pleasure," she went on sadly, "if, after an absence of six months, I cannot find it in the midst of a ball that is the envy of every woman in Paris? What is more, I am complimented on every side by a society that couldnt be better. None of the middle class is here, excepting a few peers, and one or two Juliens, perhaps. Then too,** she added with growing sadness, "what blessings has fate not bestowed upon me: an illustrious name, wealth, youth, everything, alas, but happiness.

"The most dubious of my advantages are precisely those which everyone has been pointing out to me all evening. Wit: I believe them, for it is obvious that they are all afraid of me. If they dare to broach a serious subject with me, at the end of five minutes conversation I see them, all out of breath and as if making a great discovery, arrive at the conclusion I have been repeating to them for the past hour. I am beautiful: I have that advantage for which Mme. de Stael would have sacrificed everything, and yet Is there any reason why I should be less bored if I changed my name for that of the I'm dying of boredom. Marquis de Croisenois?