has put them on again for your sake. She likes you, and you adore her;
it may be a little rapid, but it is all very natural. If I were
mistaken you wouldn't be twisting your gloves like a man who is
furious at having to sit here with me instead of flying to the box of
his idol. She has obtained," continued Madame d'Espard, glancing at
his person impertinently, "certain sacrifices which you refused to
make to society. She ought to be delighted with her success,--in fact,
I have no doubt she is vain of it; I should be so in her place
--immensely. She was never a woman of any mind, but she may now pass
for one of genius. I am sure you will describe her in one of those
delightful novels you write. And pray don't forget Vandenesse; put him
in to please me. Really, his self-sufficiency is too much. I can't
stand that Jupiter Olympian air of his,--the only mythological
character exempt, they say, from ill-luck."

"Madame," cried Raoul, "you rate my soul very low if you think me
capable of trafficking with my feelings, my affections. Rather than
commit such literary baseness, I would do as they do in England,--put
a rope round a woman's neck and sell her in the market."

"But I know Marie; she would like you to do it."

"She is incapable of liking it," said Raoul, vehemently.

"Oh! then you do know her well?"

Nathan laughed; he, the maker of scenes, to be trapped into playing
one himself!

"Comedy is no longer there," he said, nodding at the stage; "it is