He opened the door for them, and stood with his fingers to his cap saluting, in the effect of being a whole file of grenadiers.
XLIII.
At the same moment Burnamy bowed himself out of the box where he had been sitting with the ladies during the absence of the gentlemen.

He had knocked at the door almost as soon as they disappeared, and if he did not fully share the consternation which his presence caused, he looked so frightened that Mrs.March reserved the censure which the sight of him inspired, and in default of other inspiration treated his coming simply as a surprise.

She shook hands with him, and then she asked him to sit down, and listened to his explanation that he had come back to Carlsbad to write up the birthnight festivities, on an order from the Paris-New York Chronicle; that he had seen them in the box and had ventured to took in.

He was pale, and so discomposed that the heart of justice was softened more and more in Mrs.March's breast, and she left him to the talk that sprang up, by an admirable effect of tact in the young lady, between him and Miss Triscoe.
After all, she decided, there was nothing criminal in his being in Carlsbad, and possibly in the last analysis there was nothing so very wicked in his being in her box.

One might say that it was not very nice of him after he had gone away under such a cloud; but on the other hand it was nice, though in a different way, if he longed so much to see Miss Triscoe that he could not help coming.