“Perhaps she had to wait.”
“Let us have some punch.”
“It will do you no good, madame,” said Nanine.
“So much the better. Bring some fruit, too, and a paté or a wing of chicken; something or other, at once. I am hungry.”
Need I tell you the impression which this scene made upon me, or can you not imagine it?
“You are going to have supper with me,” she said to me; “meanwhile, take a book. I am going into my dressing-room for a moment.”
She lit the candles of a candelabra, opened a door at the foot of the bed, and disappeared.
I began to think over this poor girl’s life, and my love for her was mingled with a great pity. I walked to and fro in the room, thinking over things, when Prudence entered.
“Ah, you here?”’ she said, “where is Marguerite?”
“In her dressing-room.”