She had opened the way for him to speak of herself, and he availed himself of it. He began by paying her compliments and found that she was fond of them; then he aroused her woman's curiosity by telling her what was said of her in the different houses that he frequented. She was rather uneasy and could not conceal her desire for further information, although she affected much indifference as to what might be thought of herself and her tastes. He drew for her a charming portrait of a superior, independent, intelligent, and attractive woman, who had surrounded herself with a court of eminent men and still retained her position as an accomplished member of society. She disclaimed his compliments with smiles, with little disclaimers of gratified egotism, all the while taking much pleasure in the details that he gave her, and in a playful tone kept constantly asking him for more, questioning him artfully, with a sensual appetite for flattery. As he looked at her, he said to himself, "She is nothing but a child at heart, just like all the rest of them"; and he went on to finish a pretty speech in which he was commending her love for art, so rarely found among women. Then she assumed an air of mockery that he had not before suspected in her, that playfully tantalizing manner that seems inherent in the French. Mariolle had overdone his eulogy; she let him know that she was not a fool. "_Mon Dieu!_" she said, "I will confess to you that I am not quite certain whether it is art or artists that I love." He replied: "How could one love artists without being in love with art?" "Because they are sometimes more comical than men of the world." "Yes, but they have more unpleasant failings." "That is true." "Then you do not love music?" She suddenly dropped her bantering tone. "Excuse me! I adore music; I think that I am more fond of it than of anything else. And yet Massival is convinced that I know nothing at all about it." "Did he tell you so?" "No, but he thinks so." "How do you know?" "Oh! we women guess at almost everything that we don't know." "So Massival thinks that you know nothing of music?" "I am sure of it. I can see it only by the way that he has of explaining things to me, by the way in which he underscores little niceties of expression, all the while saying to himself: 'That won't be of any use, but I do it because you are so nice.'" "Still he has told me that you have the best music in your house of any in Paris, no matter whose the other may be." "Yes, thanks to him." "And literature, are you not fond of that?" "I am very fond of it; and I am even so audacious as to claim to have a very good perception of it, notwithstanding Lamarthe's opinion." "Who also decides that you know nothing at all about it?" "Of course." "But who has not told you so in words, any more than the other."