“What Christian resignation!”

“As for hating you, of all people!  Why...  I consider you adorable.  I envy Leandre every day of my life.  I have seriously thought of setting him to play Scaramouche, and playing lovers myself.”

“I don’t think you would be a success,” said she.

“That is the only consideration that restrains me.  And yet, given the inspiration that is given Leandre, it is possible that I might be convincing.”

“Why, what inspiration do you mean?”

“The inspiration of playing to so adorable a Climene.”

Her lazy eyes were now alert to search that lean face of his.

“You are laughing at me,” said she, and swept past him into the theatre on her pretended quest.  There was nothing to be done with such a fellow.  He was utterly without feeling.  He was not a man at all.

Yet when she came forth again at the end of some five minutes, she found him still lingering at the door.

“Not gone yet?” she asked him, superciliously.

“I was waiting for you, mademoiselle.  You will be walking to the inn.  If I might escort you... "

“But what gallantry!  What condescension!”

“Perhaps you would prefer that I did not?”

“How could I prefer that, M. Scaramouche?  Besides, we are both going the same way, and the streets are common to all.  It is that I am overwhelmed by the unusual honour.”

He looked into her piquant little face, and noted how obscured it was by its cloud of dignity.  He laughed.

“Perhaps I feared that the honour was not sought.”

“Ah, now I understand,” she cried.  “It is for me to seek these honours.  I am to woo a man before he will pay me the homage of civility.  It must be so, since you, who clearly know everything, have said so.  It remains for me to beg your pardon for my ignorance.”

“It amuses you to be cruel,” said Scaramouche.  “No matter.  Shall we walk?”

They set out together, stepping briskly to warm their blood against the wintry evening air.  Awhile they went in silence, yet each furtively observing the other.

“And so, you find me cruel?” she challenged him at length, thereby betraying the fact that the accusation had struck home.

He looked at her with a half smile.  “Will you deny it?”

“You are the first man that ever accused me of that.”

“I dare not suppose myself the first man to whom you have been cruel.  That were an assumption too flattering to myself.  I must prefer to think that the others suffered in silence.”

“Mon Dieu!  Have you suffered?” She was between seriousness and raillery.

“I place the confession as an offering on the altar of your vanity.”

“I should never have suspected it.”

“How could you?  Am I not what your father calls a natural actor?  I was an actor long before I became Scaramouche.  Therefore I have laughed.  I often do when I am hurt.  When you were pleased to be disdainful, I acted disdain in my turn.”