Senneterre and Bonnivet began to laugh a similar laugh to that of Tournade and Figon in little Favier’s dressing-room. The comparison struck me at once, as it has done under different conditions when I have skirted “High Society.” The actress and the woman of the world had exactly the same bad tone. Only the bad tone of the delicate Burne-Jones girl betrayed a depth of passionate soul, and an extraordinary facility for allurement, while in the case of Madam de Bonnivet it was the intolerable and fantastic caprice of the spoilt child; but it was very fine, for no shade of feeling escaped her, not even the antipathy of an unimportant person like myself, nor the ill-humour of her husband disguised by his laughter. “My dear Senneterre,” Bonnivet had simply said, “we are done with. But an old husband and an old friend are umbrellas upon which much rain has fallen!” There was in these few words a strange mixture of irony with regard to the two artists, new-comers into their circle, to whom the young woman was talking, and a deep irritation which no doubt procured for her the little tremor of fear she loved to feel. She gave her husband, whom she had so saucily braved, a coquettish glance almost tender, while the glance she gave me was indignant, and rather exciting than provoking. I had irritated her curiosity by being refractory to her seductiveness. Then, changing her conversation, and almost her accent, with a prodigious suddenness, she asked me in the most simple way possible a question about the school of painting to which I belonged. It was a starting point for her to talk of my art, without much knowledge, but strange to say with as much intelligence and good sense as before she had displayed lack of it in her jeering chaff. She talked of the danger to us artists in going much into society, and she spoke according to my idea, with a perfectly accurate view of the failings of vanity and charlatanism which the society of the idle induces. It was as if another person had replaced the original woman. They resembled one another in one point. It was the production of an effect upon a new-comer. Only this time she had divined the precise words it was necessary to use. Cold-blooded coquettes have these intuitions which take the place of knowledge concerning their adorers. I was already too much on my guard to be the dupe of this manœuvre and not to discern its artifice. But still, how could I help admiring her versatility? “Is not my little Bonnivet clever?” Jacques Molan said after we had taken our departure; “she understands everything before it is said. But why did she not invite you to supper? For she is interested in you. You could see that by Senneterre’s ill-humour. He hardly returned your greeting.” The game he did not bring was not to his liking, nor was the man who brought it. “Yes,” he went on in the tones of a man playing a very careful game and watching every detail of his opponent’s play, “why did she not invite you to supper?”