“Good, good! Talk, my children,” said Prudence, going out and closing the door behind her, as if to further emphasize the tone in which she had said these words. “Well, it is agreed,” continued Marguerite, when we were alone, “you won’t fall in love with me?” “I will go away.” “So much as that?” I had gone too far to draw back; and I was really carried away. This mingling of gaiety, sadness, candour, prostitution, her very malady, which no doubt developed in her a sensitiveness to impressions, as well as an irritability of nerves, all this made it clear to me that if from the very beginning I did not completely dominate her light and forgetful nature, she was lost to me. “Come, now, do you seriously mean what you say?” she said. “Seriously.” “But why didn’t you say it to me sooner?” “When could I have said it?” “The day after you had been introduced to me at the Opera Comique.” “I thought you would have received me very badly if I had come to see you.” “Why?” “Because I had behaved so stupidly.” “That’s true. And yet you were already in love with me.” “Yes.” “And that didn’t hinder you from going to bed and sleeping quite comfortably. One knows what that sort of love means.” “There you are mistaken. Do you know what I did that evening, after the Opera Comique?” “No.” “I waited for you at the door of the Café Anglais. I followed the carriage in which you and your three friends were, and when I saw you were the only one to get down, and that you went in alone, I was very happy.” Marguerite began to laugh. “What are you laughing at?” “Nothing.” “Tell me, I beg of you, or I shall think you are still laughing at me.” “You won’t be cross?” “What right have I to be cross?” “Well, there was a sufficient reason why I went in alone.” “What?” “Some one was waiting for me here.” If she had thrust a knife into me she would not have hurt me more. I rose, and holding out my hand, “Goodbye,” said I. “I knew you would be cross,” she said; “men are frantic to know what is certain to give them pain.” “But I assure you,” I added coldly, as if wishing to prove how completely I was cured of my passion, “I assure you that I am not cross. It was quite natural that someone should be waiting for you, just as it is quite natural that I should go from here at three in the morning.” “Have you, too, someone waiting for you?” “No, but I must go.” “Good-bye, then.” “You send me away?” “Not the least in the world.” “Why are you so unkind to me?” “How have I been unkind to you?” “In telling me that someone was waiting for you.” “I could not help laughing at the idea that you had been so happy to see me come in alone when there was such a good reason for it.” “One finds pleasure in childish enough things, and it is too bad to destroy such a pleasure when, by simply leaving it alone, one can make somebody so happy.”