I tell you it is true! A woman of the world belongs to the world; that is to say, to everyone except the man to whom she gives herself. He can see her with open doors for a quarter of an hour every three days--not oftener, because of servants. In exceptional cases, with a thousand precautions, with a thousand fears, with a thousand subterfuges, she visits him once or twice a month, perhaps, in a furnished room. Then she has just a quarter of an hour to give him, because she has just left Madame X in order to visit Madame Z, where she has told her coachman to take her. If he complains, she will not come again, because it is impossible for her to get rid of her coachman. So, you see, the coachman, and the footman, and Madame Z, and Madame X, and all the others, who visit her house as they would a museum,--a museum that never closes,--all the he's and all the she's who eat up her leisure minute by minute and second by second, to whom she owes her time as an employee owes his time to the State, simply because she belongs to the world--all these persons are like the transparent and impassable glass: they keep you from my love. MME. DE SALLUS [_dryly_] You seem upset to-day. JACQUES DE RANDOL No, no, but I hunger to be alone with you. You are mine, are you not? Or, I should say, I am yours. Isn't it true? I spend my life in looking for opportunities to meet you. Our love is made up of chance meetings, of casual bows, of stolen looks, of slight touches--nothing more. We meet on the avenue in the morning--a bow; we meet at your house, or at that of some other acquaintance--twenty words; we dine somewhere at the same table, too far from each other to talk, and I dare not even look at you because of hostile eyes. Is that love? We are simply acquaintances. MME. DE SALLUS Then you would like to carry me off? JACQUES DE RANDOL Unhappily, I cannot. MME. DE SALLUS Then what? JACQUES DE RANDOL I do not know. I only know this life is wearing me out. MME. DE SALLUS It is just because there are so many obstacles in the way of your love that it does not fade. JACQUES DE RANDOL Oh! Madeline, can you say that? MME. DE SALLUS [_softening_] Believe me, dear, if your love has to endure these hardships, it is because it is not lawful love. JACQUES DE RANDOL Well, I never met a woman as positive as you. Then you think that if chance made me your husband, I should cease to love you? MME. DE SALLUS Not all at once, perhaps, but--eventually. JACQUES DE RANDOL What you say is revolting to me. MME. DE SALLUS Nevertheless, it is quite true. You know that when a confectioner hires a greedy saleswoman he says to her, “Eat all the sweets you wish, my dear.” She stuffs herself for eight days, and then she is satisfied for the rest of her life. JACQUES DE RANDOL Ah! Indeed! But why do you include me in that class? MME. DE SALLUS Really, I do not know--perhaps as a joke! JACQUES DE RANDOL Please do not mock me. MME. DE SALLUS