Taking it up he turned over the leaves, and to offer some excuse for his action, mendaciously remarked, 'Why, your name isn't here, Claude!' 'I should think not,' said Colette; 'I won't let him send it. He sees quite enough of the swells as it is.' 'I thought you liked the society of that kind of man,' observed Claude. 'What a clever thing to say!' she replied, with a graceful shrug of her shoulders. 'They're smart, it's true--it's their business to be. They know how to dress, to play tennis, to ride, and to talk of horses, whilst you, with all your brains, will never be anything but a cad. How I wish you were now what you were eight years ago when I first met you in that restaurant at the corner of the Rue des Saints-Pères! I had just come from the Conservatoire with my mother and Farguet, my professor, and we were having some lunch. You looked so good, sitting in the corner--as though you had come from a monastery, and were having your first peep at the world. It was that, I think, that made me like you. Are you coming to the theatre to-night?' she asked René, as he closed the book and rose to go. He had found what he wanted; Madame Moraines lived in the Rue Murillo, near the Parc Monceau. 'No? Well, to-morrow then, and mind you don't get gadding about like this boy! Such fine ladies as they are, too, your Society women--I know something of them! Oh, look at his face--won't he storm as soon as you're gone! You're surely not going to be jealous of women?' she said, lighting a fresh cigarette. 'Good-bye, René.' 'She is like that before you,' observed Claude, as he let his friend out; 'but you wouldn't believe how gentle and affectionate she can be when we are alone!' 'And how about Salvaney?' asked René unthinkingly. Claude turned pale. 'She says that she merely went to his rooms to look at some drawings for her next _rôle_: she swears that there was nothing wrong in it With women, everything is possible--even what is good,' he added, giving René a hand that was not very steady. 'I can't help it--I must believe her when she looks at me in her peculiar way.' CHAPTER VII THE FACE OF A MADONNA 'Can a man of sense, and a good fellow into the bargain, fall as low as that?' René asked himself on leaving his unhappy friend. Then, thinking of Colette's handsome face, he muttered, 'She is very pretty. Heavens! if one could only get Rosalie's beauty of soul united to this creature's incomparable grace and elegance!'