"Ah! what a pleasure it must be to go there! You are not seen at all, are you? You enjoy the play, you can laugh or cry without being hooted by the gallery. Have you a place for me, Monsieur Thierry?" "I have two; I intended to offer one to my aunt." "And the other to her son? In that case----" "That makes no difference; he can go some other day; but what will people think to meet you on your solicitor's arm in the foyer? Or if some one should recognize you sitting beside Madame Marcel Thierry, what would they say?" "They may say what they please, and they will be very absurd if they find anything reprehensible in it." "That is my opinion; but people are absurd, and they will say that you keep beggarly company; I soften the word out of respect for my wife, for they will say low company." "The folly of society is shameful! Your wife is very attractive, I am told, and highly esteemed. I will go to see her to-morrow, for I know that to go to occupy a seat in her box unceremoniously, before asking her permission, would not be proper. Yes, yes, I will call to make her acquaintance, and we will go to the theatre together another day." Marcel smiled, for he thoroughly understood the cowardice which had taken possession of his noble client at the idea of being accused of mixing with low company. She considered it cruel, unfair, insulting, absurd; but she was afraid none the less: fear does not reason. "Very well, very well," Marcel replied; "I recognize your delicacy of feeling and your kind heart. My wife will be grateful to you for the intention, and she will be flattered to offer you her box this very evening; but take my advice, madame la comtesse, and do not go outside of your own circle to-night, nor to-morrow, nor ever, unless for some well-matured and well-digested reason. We must eat when we are hungry, but not force ourselves when we have only a suspicion of an appetite. The society to which you belong wants no mixture, and you must not defy it except for some great personal advantage or to do some very good deed. No one will understand that you do something outside of the conventional solely for the pleasure of doing it. They will be surprised first of all, and then they will look for motives, concealed or serious." "And what will they find?" said Julie, uneasily. "Nothing," replied Marcel; "but they will invent, and what people invent is always malicious." "The result being that I am condemned to solitude?" "You have accepted it courageously thus far, and you know well that it will cease when you choose." "Yes, by marriage; but where am I to find a husband to fill the conditions demanded by the world and by me? Consider: he must be wealthy, so you yourself say, noble, according to my friends, and I myself insist that he must be agreeable and a man made to be loved! I shall not find him, you know, and I shall do better----"