given a wig and a petticoat I could do it better myself. But never have
I seen it neater played than Marie played it on that young man of hers.
One day she would greet him for all the world like a tired child that at
last has found its mother, and the next day respond to him in a style
calculated to give you the idea of a small-sized empress in misfortune
compelled to tolerate the familiarities of an anarchist. One moment she
would throw him a pout that said as clearly as words: 'What a fool you
are not to put your arms round me and kiss me'; and five minutes later
chill him with a laugh that as good as told him he must be blind not to
see that she was merely playing with him. What happened outside the
Cafe--for now and then she would let him meet her of a morning in the
Tuileries and walk down to the Cafe with her, and once or twice had
allowed him to see her part of the way home--I cannot tell you: I only
know that before strangers it was her instinct to be reserved. I take it
that on such occasions his experiences were interesting; but whether they
left him elated or depressed I doubt if he could have told you himself.

"But all the time Marie herself was just going from bad to worse. She
had come to the Cafe a light-hearted, sweet-tempered girl; now, when she
wasn't engaged in her play-acting--for that's all it was, I could see
plainly enough--she would go about her work silent and miserable-looking,
or if she spoke at all it would be to say something bitter. Then one
morning after a holiday she had asked for, and which I had given her
without any questions, she came to business more like her old self than I
had seen her since the afternoon Master Tom Sleight had appeared upon the
scene. All that day she went about smiling to herself; and young
Flammard, presuming a bit too far maybe upon past favours, found himself
sharply snubbed: it was a bit rough on him, the whole thing.

"'It's come to a head,' says I to myself; 'he has explained everything,