She played her piece carefully: and, as she was clever, she succeeded fairly well, and sometimes even very well. Christophe, who was not deceived, laughed inwardly at the skill "of the little beast, who played as though she felt what she was playing, while really she felt nothing at all." And yet he had a sort of amused sympathy for her. Colette, on her part, seized every excuse for going on with the conversation, which interested her much more than her lesson. It was no good Christophe drawing back on the excuse that he could not say what he thought without hurting her feelings: she always wheedled it out of him: and the more insulting it was, the less she was hurt by it: it was an amusement for her. But, as she was quick enough to see that Christophe liked nothing so much as sincerity, she would contradict him flatly, and argue tenaciously They would part very good friends. However, Christophe would never have had the least illusion about their friendship, and there would never have been the smallest intimacy between them, had not Colette one day taken it into her head, out of sheer instinctive coquetry, to confide in him. The evening before her parents had given an At Home. She had laughed, chattered, flirted outrageously: but next morning, when Christophe came for her lesson, she was worn out, drawn-looking, gray-faced, and haggard. She hardly spoke: she seemed utterly depressed. She sat at the piano, played softly, made mistakes, tried to correct them, made them again, stopped short, and said: "I can't.... Please forgive me.... Please wait a little...." He asked if she were unwell. She said: "No.... She was out of sorts.... She had bouts of it.... It was absurd, but he must not mind." He proposed to go away and come again another day: but she insisted on his staying: "Just a moment.... I shall be all right presently.... It's silly of me, isn't it?" He felt that she was not her usual self: but he did not question her: and, to turn the conversation, he said: "That's what comes of having been so brilliant last night. You took too much out of yourself." She smiled a little ironically. "One can't say the same of you," she replied. He laughed. "I don't believe you said a word," she went on. "Not a word." "But there were interesting people there." "Oh yes. All sorts of lights and famous people, all talking at once. But I'm lost among all your boneless Frenchmen who understand everything, and explain everything, and excuse everything--and feel nothing at all. People who talk for hours together about art and love! Isn't it revolting?" "But you ought to be interested in art if not in love." "One doesn't talk about these things: one does them." "But when one cannot do them?" said Colette, pouting. Christophe replied with a laugh: "Well, leave it to others. Everybody is not fit for art." "Nor for love?" "Nor for love." "How awful! What is left for us?" "Housekeeping."