To-day as I pass in detail these recollections, just as one inks over a half-effaced pencil route upon a map, I clearly understand a truth which escaped me at the time. I had fallen in love with Camille Favier the moment I saw her on the stage with her fine beautiful face so like the art type of a master whom I have studied much. This little actress, of whom I knew nothing, except that she spoke well and was the mistress of a fashionable author, had at once touched one of the most vibrating fibres in my heart. In spite of Molan’s boasting, in spite of the childish grace of her reception, she might be a profligate or a schemer. Certainly she was a very cunning innocent, since by my companion’s confession the siege of her virtue had nothing in common, either in length or in difficulty, with the siege of Troy or even the siege of Paris. A person does not reflect much when his heart is captivated as mine was. This child already occupied such a prominent place in my feelings, that the idea of her leaving the theatre with Molan that evening gave me a strange feeling of sadness. Now that the time is past I can explain these impressions; then, I contented myself with feeling them. Seated in the box, opera glass in hand, I thought in good faith that this sadness proceeded to establish that commonplace and discouraging statement, that the most beloved of men are those who love the least. Then neither use nor age have hardened me concerning disloyalty in love. I never could lie to a mistress, even one engaged like an extra cook for a week. Actually I have not known many of that sort. My caprices have lasted for eight years, and I have experienced deception which ought to make me indulgent where the ruses of men against women are concerned. People like Jacques Molan revenge us others who have never made ourselves loved, simply because we love. Perhaps I ought to have experienced in this box at the Vaudeville on this strange evening that not very delicate but very natural feeling, the joy of the avenged company, if the victim of that vengeance had not been the little Blue Duchess. When she appeared on the stage, I was seized with pity at noticing the happier look in her eyes, the more joyful fire of her acting, and the visible tremors in her supple and nervous person, of a lover who believes herself loved. When she disappeared into the wings, my pity grew and changed into indignation. My friend got up with a malicious look upon his face. As I watched him in the distance enter Madam de Bonnivet’s box I said to myself not without bitterness—