"Really, Timoléon, I hope you have never had the pretension to be a 'fancied one,' an ideal being?" "I have no pretension to be an ideal being, my dear; but----" "Silence! the curtain is going up." M. Girard was silent. Bertha and Madame Girard again lent all their attention to the last act of the comedy; and De Brévannes, whose features grew darker and darker, cast, from time to time, strange looks on his wife; his absurd jealousy was alarmed at the interest which Bertha had shewn when speaking of the sufferings of the prince, whose features she had not even seen. CHAPTER XVIII AFTER THE PLAY "Well?" "Decided success." "Yes, great and unquestionable." "How devilish lucky Gercourt is!" "It is a capital beginning." "Bah! he never wrote the thing." "Why, that idea came into my head the moment I saw it must succeed." "If it had only had moderate success, one might have believed that Gercourt really wrote the play." "If it had failed, there would not have been a moment's doubt on the subject." "Why, success is all very well; but you know, in such cases, the acting of the performers is every thing." "Quite true. Just now I was standing beside a newspaper man, and he said that it was clever, but not written _close_, not _dovetailed_." "Yes, that is the word I meant; the plot was not _dovetailed_." "Decidedly not; and if persons will meddle with theatrical writing, they ought at least to have a good knowledge of _dovetailing_." "Yes, the whole piece depends on that." "But there are some people who imagine they possess every thing by instinct. "Why, I think Gercourt a most excellent fellow, and very amiable and nice before he was seized with the mania for writing, but now he has such a mysterious, preoccupied air----" "That is in the last degree ridiculous." "Only look at Morville. In spite of his melancholy he has as self-satisfied an air as if he were the author himself." "Yes, without any possible reason." "Well, gentlemen, I told you what the result would be. What an effective _dénouement_!--It is hardly a success,--it ought to be called a triumph." "It proves that our friendship has done every thing;--we were all here, and filled the house. It was quite a family affair." "The thing must be tried before an impartial audience." "To speak frankly, it is in spite of your friendship that Gercourt has succeeded." "Oh! you are always talking paradoxes, Morville. As soon as any one is your friend, even if he had killed father and mother, he would be excusable in your eyes." "And the best reason would be, my dear sir, when that friend had written a delightful comedy: at least you must allow some extenuating circumstances to his crime. In the first place, he could not believe that the success he desired would be so disagreeable to you; and I can assure you, that in that particular there was no premeditation on his part." "You are joking now, Morville. "I only say the truth."