"To say something different...."
"What?"
"To have it altered altogether!"
"For what?"
"To say"—and Mademoiselle Mars made a show of trying to find the word which she had really been turning over in her mind for three days—"to say, for instance ... ahem!... say ... ahem!
'Vous êtes, monseigneur, superbe et généreux!'
Monseigneur enables the line to be scanned just the same as mon lion, does it not?"
"Quite so, madame; only mon lion lightens the line, and monseigneur makes it heavy."
"I would much rather be hissed for a good line than applauded for a bad one. Very well, very well ... we will not bother any longer about it.... I will say your good line without changing anything in it! Come, Firmin, my friend, let us go on....
'Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"