"As if one _asked_ for such a thing as that? What! you love a woman and
let her paddle about in the mud at the risk of breaking her legs?
Nobody but a knight of the yardstick likes to see a draggled skirt
hem."

As she uttered the sharp words that cut Camusot to the quick, she
groped for Lucien's knee, and pressed it against her own, and clasped
her fingers upon his hand. She was silent. All her power to feel
seemed to be concentrated upon the ineffable joy of a moment which
brings compensation for the whole wretched past of a life such as
these poor creatures lead, and develops within their souls a poetry of
which other women, happily ignorant of these violent revulsions, know
nothing.

"You played like Mlle. Mars herself towards the end," said du Bruel.

"Yes," said Camusot, "something put her out at the beginning; but from
the middle of the second act to the very end, she was enough to drive
you wild with admiration. Half of the success of your play was due to
her."

"And half of her success is due to me," said du Bruel.

"This is all much ado about nothing," said Coralie in an unfamiliar
voice. And, seizing an opportunity in the darkness, she carried
Lucien's hand to her lips and kissed it and drenched it with tears.
Lucien felt thrilled through and through by that touch, for in the
humility of the courtesan's love there is a magnificence which might
set an example to angels.