given herself to this man, it was not that he believed it, but merely
that he was fain sometimes to mitigate the bitterness of his
sufferings.

Mechanical applause broke out at the back of the theatre, and a few
members of the orchestra, murmuring inaudibly, clapped their hands
slowly and noiselessly. Nanteuil had just given her last reply to Jeanne
Perrin.

"_Brava! Brava!_ She is delightful, dear little woman!" sighed Madame
Doulce.

In his jealous anger, Chevalier was disloyal. Lifting a finger to his
forehead, he remarked:

"She plays with _that_." Then, placing his hand upon his heart, he
added: "It is with this that one should act."

"Thanks, dear friend, thanks!" murmured Madame Doulce, who read into
these maxims an obvious eulogy of herself.

She was, indeed, in the habit of asserting that all good acting comes
from the heart; she maintained that, to give full expression to a
passion, it was necessary to experience it, and to feel in one's own
person the expressions that one wished to represent. She was fond of
referring to herself as an example of this. When appearing as a tragedy
queen, after draining a goblet of poison on the stage, her bowels had
been on fire all night. Nevertheless she was given to saying: "The
dramatic art is an imitative art, and one imitates an emotion all the
better for not having experienced it." And to illustrate this maxim she