“Rosalie,” she ordered, after a moment’s hesitation, “take a turn or two in the garden.  Now speak, sir,” and she remained standing on the step, leaving the gate half-way open, as it had been at the moment he had kissed her hand.

He spoke in all the sincerity of his inmost heart: 

“All I have to say to you, Madame, is that you must not, you ought not, to repulse me, for I love you too well to live without you.”

She appeared to be searching in her memory.

“Was it not you,” she asked, “who sent me some verses?”

He said it was, and she resumed: 

“You followed me one evening.  It is not right, sir, not the right thing, to follow ladies in the street.”

“I only followed you, and that was because I could not help it.”

“You are very young.”

“Yes, but it was long ago I began to love you.”

“It came upon you all in a moment, did it not?”

“Yes, when I saw you.”

“That is what I thought.  You are inflammable, so it seems.”

“I do not know, Madame.  I love you and I am very unhappy.  I have lost the heart to live, and I cannot bear to die, for then I should not see you any more.  Let me be near you sometimes.  It must be so heavenly!”

“But, sir, I know nothing about you.”

“That is my misfortune.  But how can I be a stranger for you?  You are no stranger, no stranger in my eyes.  I do not know any woman, for me there is no other woman in the world but you.”

And again he took her hand, which she let him kiss.  Then: 

“It is all very pretty,” she said, “but it is not an occupation, being in love.  What are you?  What do you do?”

He answered frankly enough: 

“My father is in trade; he is looking out for a post for me.”

The actress understood the truth; here was a little bourgeois, living contentedly on next to nothing, reared in habits of penuriousness, a hidebound, mean creature, like the petty tradesmen who used to come to her whining for their bills, and whom she encountered of a Sunday in smart new coats in the Meudon woods.  She could feel no interest in him, such as he might have inspired, whether as a rich man with bouquets and jewels to offer her, or a poor wretch so hungry and miserable as to bring tears to her eyes.  Dazzle her eyes or stir her compassion, it must be one or the other!  Then she was used to young fellows of a more enterprising mettle.  She thought of a young violinist at the Conservatoire who, one evening, when she was entertaining company, had pretended to leave with the rest and concealed himself in her dressing-room; as she was undressing, thinking herself alone, he burst from his hiding-place, a bottle of champagne in either hand and laughing like a mad-man.  The new lover was less diverting.  However, she asked him his name.

“Jean Servien.”

“Well, Monsieur Jean Servien, I am sorry, very sorry, to have made you unhappy, as you say you are.”