"'The girl is playing the prude. She refuses to listen to my friend's proposals, and won't accept his bouquets. That's a familiar manoeuvre to increase her value.' "'But suppose your friend doesn't please her? Isn't she her own mistress, pray?' "'Bah! that's all mere comedy! She means to lead my friend on. But he has invited her to a nice little dinner to-morrow. I am to be there. If she comes, I exalt her to the skies; if she doesn't, I tear her to tatters.' "I said nothing, but I cannot describe my sensations. I turned my eyes away so that Saint-Bergame should not see their expression, in which he might read what I thought of him. I waited impatiently for the second day following--that was the day before yesterday. I lost no time in opening the newspaper edited by Saint-Bergame, in which I found an article on the young débutante we had seen. Not only did he criticise her acting, her methods, and her stage manner in the most contemptuous terms, but he also attacked her personal appearance; she is pretty, and he called her ugly; she has a fine figure, and he said she was deformed; she is exceedingly graceful, and he could not find words to describe her awkwardness and her embarrassment; in short, according to that article, she was a sort of monster who had been allowed to go on the stage to amuse the public for a moment. "I crumpled the paper in my hands and threw it on the floor; I was furiously angry with Saint-Bergame. When he appeared, I threw his abominable article in his face, and told him that he was a dastard; that a man who would empty his gall so on a woman deserved no woman's love, and that I forbade him to darken my doors again. He tried to insist, to turn it into a joke, and called me hot-headed. But when he saw that I was in earnest, I believe that he lost his temper, too, and asked me by what right I presumed to pass judgment on his writings. I made no answer, but locked myself into my room. He went away in a rage, and I have not seen him since." "And if he comes back?" "I shall not receive him. It's all over! all over!" "And you don't regret him?" "I regret having had any relations with him--that is what I regret. He's a good-looking fellow, and I liked him. But I realize now that I never loved him." "But if he loves you, he will return; he will beg you, beseech you."