began to be animated. It was instantaneous with both of them, like a fire that blazes up brightly as soon as a match is applied to it. It seemed as if they had imparted their sensations and their opinions to each other beforehand, as if a similarity of disposition and education, of tastes and inclinations, had predisposed them to a mutual understanding and fated them to meet.
Perhaps there may have been a little artfulness on the part of the young woman, but the delight that one feels in encountering one who is capable of listening, who can understand you and reply to you and whose answers give scope for your repartees, put Mariolle into a fine glow of spirits. Flattered, moreover, by the reception which she had accorded him, subjugated by the alluring favor that she displayed and by the charm which she knew how to use so adroitly in captivating men, he did his best to exhibit to her that shade of subdued but personal and delicate wit which, when people came to know him well, had gained for him so many and such warm friendships.
She suddenly said to him:
“Really, it is very pleasant to converse with you, Monsieur. I had been told that such was the case, however.”
He was conscious that he was blushing, and replied at a venture:
“And I had been told, Madame, that you were— “
She interrupted him:
“Say a coquette. I am a good deal of a coquette with people whom I like. Everyone knows it, and I do not attempt to conceal it from myself, but you will see that I am very impartial in my coquetry, and this allows me to keep or to recall my friends without ever losing them, and to retain them all about me.”
She said this with a sly air which was meant to say: “Be easy and don’t be too presumptuous. Don’t deceive yourself, for you will get nothing more, than the others.”
He replied:
“That is what you might call warning your guests of the perils that await them here. Thank you, Madame: I greatly admire your mode of procedure.”
She had opened the way for him to speak of herself, and he availed himself of it. He began by paying her compliments and found that she was fond of them; then he aroused her woman’s curiosity by telling her what was said of her in the different houses that he frequented. She was rather uneasy and could not conceal her desire for further information, although she affected much indifference as to what might be thought of herself and her tastes. He drew for her a charming portrait of a superior, independent, intelligent, and attractive woman, who had surrounded herself with a court of eminent men and still retained her position as an accomplished member of society. She disclaimed his compliments with smiles, with little disclaimers of gratified egotism, all the while taking much pleasure in the details that he gave her, and in a playful tone kept constantly asking him for more, questioning him artfully, with a sensual appetite for flattery.
As he looked at her, he said to himself, “She is nothing but a child at heart, just like all the rest of them”; and he went on to finish a pretty speech in which he was commending her love for art, so rarely found among women. Then she assumed an air of mockery that he had not before suspected in her, that playfully tantalizing manner that seems inherent in the French. Mariolle had overdone his eulogy; she let him know that she was not a fool.
“Mon Dieu!” she said, “I will confess to you that I am not quite certain whether it is art or artists that I love.”
He replied: “How could one love artists without being in love with art?”
“Because they are sometimes more comical than men of the world.”
“Yes, but they have more unpleasant failings.”
“That is true.”
“Then you do not love music?”
She suddenly dropped her bantering tone. “Excuse me! I adore music; I think that I am more fond of it than of anything else. And yet Massival is convinced that I know nothing at all about it.”
“Did he tell you so?”
“No, but he thinks so.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh! we women guess at almost everything that we don’t know.”
“So Massival thinks that you know nothing of music?”
“I am sure of it. I can see it only by the way that he has of explaining things to me, by the way in which he underscores little niceties of expression, all the while saying to himself: ‘That won’t be of any use, but I do it because you are so nice.’”
“Still he has told me that you have the best music in your house of any in Paris, no matter whose the other may be.”
“Yes, thanks to him.”
“And literature, are you not fond of that?”
‘ “I am very fond of it; and I am even so audacious as to claim to have a very good perception of it, notwithstanding Lamarthe’s opinion.”
“Who also decides that you know nothing at all about it?”
“Of course.”
“But who has not told you so in words, any more than the other.”
“Pardon me; he is more outspoken. He asserts that certain women are capable of showing a very just and delicate perception of the sentiments that are expressed, of the truthfulness of the characters, of psychology in general, but that they are totally incapable of discerning the superiority that resides in his profession, its art. When he has once uttered this word, Art, all that is left one to do is to show him the door.”
Mariolle smiled and asked:
“And you, Madame, what do you think of it?” She reflected for a few seconds, then looked him straight in the face to see if he was in a frame of mind to listen and to understand her.
“I believe that sentiment, you understand — sentiment — can make a woman’s mind receptive of everything; only it is frequently the case that what enters does not remain there. Do you follow me?”
“No, not fully, Madame.”
“Very well! To make us comprehensive to the same degree as you, our woman’s nature must be appealed to before addressing our intelligence. We take no interest in what a man has not first made sympathetic to us, for we look at all things through the medium of sentiment. I do not say through the medium of love; no, — but of sentiment, which has shades, forms, and manifestations of every sort. Sentiment is something that belongs exclusively to our domain, which you men have no conception of, for it befogs you while it enlightens us. Oh! I know that all this is incomprehensible to you, the more the pity! In a word, if a man loves us and is agreeable to us, for it is indispensable that we should feel that we are loved in order to become capable of the effort — and if this man is a superior being, by taking a little pains he can make us feel, know, and possess everything, everything, I say, and at odd moments and by bits impart to us the whole of his intelligence. That is all often blotted out afterward; it disappears, dies out, for we are forgetful. Oh! we forget as the wind forgets the words that are spoken to it. We are intuitive and capable of enlightenment, but changeable, impressionable, readily swayed by our surroundings. If I could only tell you how
