The Count of Monte Cristo

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impossible for her to go alone with Eugenie to the opera. There is no
gainsaying the fact that a very unfavorable construction would have
been put upon the circumstance if the two women had gone without escort,
while the addition of a third, in the person of her mother's admitted
lover, enabled Mademoiselle Danglars to defy malice and ill-nature. One
must take the world as one finds it.

The curtain rose, as usual, to an almost empty house, it being one of
the absurdities of Parisian fashion never to appear at the opera
until after the beginning of the performance, so that the first act is
generally played without the slightest attention being paid to it,
that part of the audience already assembled being too much occupied in
observing the fresh arrivals, while nothing is heard but the noise of
opening and shutting doors, and the buzz of conversation. "Surely," said
Albert, as the door of a box on the first circle opened, "that must be
the Countess G----."