yourself a little stiff. That is the secret of the _ingénue_. Beware of
your charming natural suppleness. Young girls in a 'stock' piece ought
to be just a trifle doll-like. It's good form. The costume requires it.
You see, Félicie, what you must do above all, when you are playing in
_La Mère confidente_, which is a delightful play----"

"Oh," interrupted Félicie, "so long as I have a good part, I don't care
a fig for the play. Besides, I am not particularly in love with
Marivaux----What are you laughing at, doctor? Have I put my foot in it?
Isn't _La Mère confidente_ by Marivaux?"

"To be sure it is!"

"Well, then? You are always trying to muddle me. I was saying that
Angélique gets on my nerves. I should prefer a part with more meat in
it, something out of the ordinary. This evenings especially, the part
gives me the creeps."

"All the more likely that you'll do well in it, my pet," said Madame
Doulce. "We never enter more thoroughly into our parts than when we do
so by main force, and in spite of ourselves. I could give you many
examples. I myself, in _La Vivandière d'Austerlitz_, staggered the house
by my gaiety of tone, when I had just been informed that my Doulce, so
great an artist and so good a husband, had had an epileptic fit in the
orchestra at the Odéon, just as he was picking up his cornet."

"Why do they insist on my being nothing but an _ingénue_?" inquired
Nanteuil, who wanted to play the woman in love, the brilliant coquette,
and every part a woman could play.