“Marguerite,” he said, “you must not be surprised if M. Duval says nothing: you overwhelm him to such a degree that he can not find a word to say.” “I should say, on the contrary, that he has only come with you because it would have bored you to come here by yourself.” “If that were true,” I said, “I should not have begged Ernest to ask your permission to introduce me.” “Perhaps that was only in order to put off the fatal moment.” However little one may have known women like Marguerite, one can not but know the delight they take in pretending to be witty and in teasing the people whom they meet for the first time. It is no doubt a return for the humiliations which they often have to submit to on the part of those whom they see every day. To answer them properly, one requires a certain knack, and I had not had the opportunity of acquiring it; besides, the idea that I had formed of Marguerite accentuated the effects of her mockery. Nothing that came from her was indifferent to me. I rose to my feet, saying in an altered voice, which I could not entirely control: “If that is what you think of me, madame, I have only to ask your pardon for my indiscretion, and to take leave of you with the assurance that it shall not occur again.” Thereupon I bowed and quitted the box. I had scarcely closed the door when I heard a third peal of laughter. It would not have been well for anybody who had elbowed me at that moment. I returned to my seat. The signal for raising the curtain was given. Ernest came back to his place beside me. “What a way you behaved!” he said, as he sat down. “They will think you are mad.” “What did Marguerite say after I had gone?” “She laughed, and said she had never seen anyone so funny. But don’t look upon it as a lost chance; only do not do these women the honour of taking them seriously. They do not know what politeness and ceremony are. It is as if you were to offer perfumes to dogs—they would think it smelled bad, and go and roll in the gutter.” “After all, what does it matter to me?” I said, affecting to speak in a nonchalant way. “I shall never see this woman again, and if I liked her before meeting her, it is quite different now that I know her.” “Bah! I don’t despair of seeing you one day at the back of her box, and of hearing that you are ruining yourself for her. However, you are right, she hasn’t been well brought up; but she would be a charming mistress to have.” Happily, the curtain rose and my friend was silent. I could not possibly tell you what they were acting. All that I remember is that from time to time I raised my eyes to the box I had quitted so abruptly, and that the faces of fresh visitors succeeded one another all the time.