assure you that in the second of _La Mère confidente_ you put in some
excellent touches, which are far from easy to bring off."

Nanteuil, with smiling eyes, waited--as is always the case when one has
received a compliment--for another.

Madame Doulce, thus invited by Nanteuil's silence, murmured some
additional words of praise:

"...excellent touches, genuinely individual business!"

"You really think so, Madame Doulce? Glad to hear it, for I don't feel
the part. And then that great Perrin woman upsets me altogether. It is a
fact. When I sit on the creature's knees, it makes me feel as if----You
don't know all the horrors that she whispers into my ear while we are on
the stage! She's crazy! I understand everything, but there are some
things which disgust me. Michon, don't my stays crease at the back, on
the right?"

"My dear child," cried Trublet with enthusiasm, "you have just said
something that is really admirable."

"What?" inquired Nanteuil simply.

"You said: 'I understand everything, but there are some things which
disgust me.' You understand everything; the thoughts and actions of men
appear to you as particular instances of the universal mechanics, but in
respect of them you cherish neither hatred nor anger. But there are
things which disgust you; you have a fastidious taste, and it is
profoundly true that morals are a matter of taste. My child, I could