"
"Thanks!" said the countess, pressing her sister's hand. "Ah! I'd give
ten years of life--"
"Out of your old age--"
"If I could put an end to these anxieties," said the countess, smiling
at the interruption.
The persons who were at that moment levelling their opera-glasses at
the two sisters might well have supposed them engaged in some
light-hearted talk; but any observer who had come to the Opera more
for the pleasure of watching faces than for mere idle amusement might
have guessed them in trouble, from the anxious look which followed the
momentary smiles on their charming faces. Raoul, who did not fear the
bailiffs at night, appeared, pale and ashy, with anxious eye and
gloomy brow, on the step of the staircase where he regularly took his
stand. He looked for the Countess in her box and, finding it empty,
buried his face in his hands, leaning his elbows on the balustrade.
"Can she be here!" he thought.
"Look up, unhappy hero," whispered Mme. du Tillet.
As for Marie, at all risks she fixed on him that steady magnetic gaze,
in which the will flashes from the eye, as rays of light from the sun.
Such a look, mesmerizers say, penetrates to the person on whom it is
directed, and certainly Raoul seemed as though struck by a magic wand.
Raising his head, his eyes met those of the sisters. With that
charming feminine readiness which is never at fault, Mme.
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