As he
entered his box, the Marquis saw Foedora sitting exactly opposite to
him on the other side of the theatre. The Countess had probably only
just come, for she was just flinging off her scarf to leave her throat
uncovered, and was occupied with going through all the indescribable
manoeuvres of a coquette arranging herself. All eyes were turned upon
her. A young peer of France had come with her; she asked him for the
lorgnette she had given him to carry. Raphael knew the despotism to
which his successor had resigned himself, in her gestures, and in the
way she treated her companion. He was also under the spell no doubt,
another dupe beating with all the might of a real affection against
the woman's cold calculations, enduring all the tortures from which
Valentin had luckily freed himself.
Foedora's face lighted up with indescribable joy. After directing her
lorgnette upon every box in turn, to make a rapid survey of all the
dresses, she was conscious that by her toilette and her beauty she had
eclipsed the loveliest and best-dressed women in Paris. She laughed to
show her white teeth; her head with its wreath of flowers was never
still, in her quest of admiration. Her glances went from one box to
another, as she diverted herself with the awkward way in which a
Russian princess wore her bonnet, or over the utter failure of a
bonnet with which a banker's daughter had disfigured herself.
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