“How can any one accuse you of lack of imagination?” she exclaimed.  “You are a very romantic man, and your romance is a transparent chapelle.  Now I know why you are so indulgent to the romances of others.”

Then carelessly drawing the brush in her hand over an arm-chair, she seated herself in it, placed another seat facing her, and said:  “Come, sit down here near me on this stool; I will put a cushion on it to make you more comfortable.  Come, I must talk with you.”

He drew near, seated himself, and put his ear towards her.  “Must I take off my apron?” he asked.

“Why so?”

“I foresee that our conversation will revolve about matters pertaining to the height of romance.  I wish to make a suitable appearance.”

“Nonsense! your apron is very becoming.  All that I desire and stipulate is, that you will accord me most religious attention.”

She then proceeded to recount to him, point by point, all that had occurred at Mme. de Lorcy’s.  She began her recital in a tranquil tone; she grew animated; she warmed up by degrees; her eyes sparkled.  He listened to her with deep chagrin; but he gazed on her with pride as he did so, thinking, “Mon Dieu, how beautiful she is, and what a lucky rascal is this Pole!”

When she had ended, there was a moment’s pause, during which she left him to his reflections.  As he maintained an ominous silence, she grew impatient.  “Speak,” she exclaimed.  “I wish to know your innermost thoughts.”

“I think you are adorable.”

“Oh! please, do for once be serious.”

“Seriously,” he rejoined, “I am not certain that you are wrong, nor has it been proved to me that you are right; there remain some doubts.”

She cried out eagerly:  “According to this, the sole realities of this world are things that can be seen, touched, felt—­a retort and its contents.  Beyond this all is null and void, a lie, a cheat.  Ah! your wretched retorts and crucibles!  If I followed out this thought, I should be ready to break every one of them.”

She cast about her as she spoke so ferocious and threatening a look, that M. Moriaz trembled for his laboratory, “I beg of you,” he protested, “have mercy on my poor crucibles, my honest retorts, my innocent jars!  They have nothing to do with this affair.  Is it their fault that the stories you narrate to me so disturb my usual train of thoughts that I find it wholly impossible to make adroit replies?”

“You do not, then, believe in the extraordinary?”

“The extraordinary!  Every time I encounter it, I salute it,” replied he, drawing off his cap and bowing low; “but at the same time I demand its papers.”

“Ah! there we are.  I really imagined that the investigation had been made.”

“It was not conclusive, since it failed to convince Mme. de Lorcy.”

“Ah! who could convince Mme. de Lorcy?  Do you forget how people of the world are constituted, and how they detest all that astonishes, all that exceeds their limits, all that they cannot weight with their small balances, measure with their tiny compasses?”