you understand why I always get up and go at the sound of a bell?

M. DE SALLUS [_laughs_]

What you say is very true. Drawing-rooms now are not habitable from four
o'clock to seven, and our wives have no right to complain if we leave
them to go to the club.

MME. DE SALLUS [_sarcastically_]

Nevertheless, I do not see my way to receiving ballet girls, or chorus
girls, or actresses, or so-called painters, poets, musicians, and
others--in order to keep you near me.

M. DE SALLUS

I do not ask so much as that. All I desire is a few witty fellows, some
charming women, and by no means a crowd.

MME. DE SALLUS

You talk nonsense; you cannot pick and choose.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

No, truly, you cannot sift and strain the flow of idiocy that you meet
in the drawing-rooms of to-day.

M. DE SALLUS