“Why so?”

“Suppose the cholera were to come to Paris?”

“Oh! nonsense!”

“Do you believe in the cholera?”

“To be sure I do!  He’s coming from the North, with his walking-stick under his arm.”

“The devil take him on the road! don’t let us see his green visage here.”

“They say he’s at London.”

“A pleasant journey to him.”

“Come, let us talk of something else; it may be a weakness, if you please, but I call this a dull subject.”

“I believe you.”

“Oh! gentlemen—­I am not mistaken—­no—­it is she!”

“Who, then?”

“Mdlle. de Cardoville!  She is coming into the stage-box with Morinval and his wife.  It is a complete resuscitation:  this morning on the Champs-Elysees; in the evening here.”

“Faith, you are right!  It is Mdlle. de Cardoville.”

“Good heaven! how lovely she is!”

“Lend me your eyeglass.”

“Well, what do you think of her?”

“Exquisite—­dazzling.”

“And in addition to her beauty, an inexhaustible flow of wit, three hundred thousand francs a year, high birth, eighteen years of age, and—­free as air.”

“Yes, that is to say, that, provided it pleased her, I might be to morrow—­or even to-day—­the happiest of men.”

“It is enough to turn one’s brain.”

“I am told that her mansion, Rue d’Anjou, is like an enchanted palace; a great deal is said about a bath-room and bedroom, worthy of the Arabian Nights.”

“And free as air—­I come back to that.”

“Ah! if I were in her place!”

“My levity would be quite shocking.”

“Oh! gentlemen, what a happy man will he be who is loved first!”

“You think, then, that she will have many lovers?”

“Being as free as air—­”

“All the boxes are full, except the stage-box opposite to that in which
Mdlle. de Cardoville is seated.  Happy the occupiers of that box!”

“Did you see the English ambassador’s lady in the dress circle?”

“And the Princess d’Alvimar—­what an enormous bouquet!”

“I should like to know the name—­of that nosegay.”

“Oh!—­it’s Germigny.”

“How flattering for the lions and tigers, to attract so fashionable an audience.”

“Do you notice, gentlemen, how all the women are eye-glassing Mdlle. de Cardoville?”

“She makes a sensation.”

“She is right to show herself; they gave her out as mad.”

“Oh! gentlemen, what a capital phiz!”

“Where—­where?”

“There—­in the omnibus-box beneath Mdlle. de Cardoville’s.”

“It’s a Nuremburg nutcracker.”

“An ourang-outang!”

“Did you ever see such round, staring eyes?”

“And the nose!”

“And the forehead!”

“It’s a caricature.”

“Order, order! the curtain rises.”