“Have you not a good digestion?” he asked with a laugh; “I don’t know that I have a stomach. Then I will have extra dry champagne.” His egoism was of a convenient kind, as he never discussed other people’s caprices, nor allowed them to discuss his. He ordered the dinner and asked me if I had seen his play at the Vaudeville, what I thought of it, and whether it was not the best thing he had done. “You know,” I replied in some embarrassment, “I hardly ever go to the theatre.” “What luck!” he went on good-humouredly. “I will take you this evening. I shall find out your first impression of it. Will you be frank with me? You will see that it is not so bitter as _Adéle_, nor quite so eloquent as _La Vaincue_. But the way to succeed is to baffle expectations; never, never repeat oneself! Those who reproached me with lack of brain and ignorance of my business, have had to acknowledge their mistake. You know me. I say out loud what I think. When I published _Tendres Nuances_, last year, you remember what I said to you: 'It is not worth the trouble of reading’; but _La Duchesse Blue_ is different. The public is of the same opinion as myself.” “But where do you find your titles?” I asked. “What!” he cried; “you, a painter, ask me that question? Don’t you know Gainsborough’s 'Blue Boy’ in the gallery of Grosvenor House in London? My play has for its heroine a woman whom one of your colleagues, better informed than yourself in English manners, has painted in a harmony of blue tints as the Gainsborough boy. This woman, being a Duchess, has been nicknamed in her set the Little Blue Duchess, because of the portrait. With my dialogue and little Favier!” “Who is little Favier?” I asked. “What!” he cried, “don’t you know little Favier? You pretend to live in Paris! Not that I blame you for not frequenting the theatres. Seeing the kind of plays usually put on, I think it was high time they gave us young ones a chance.” “That does not tell me about little Favier,” I insisted.