"You know, I cannot afford to spend as much as fifteen hundred francs on my dresses; but you need not be anxious, I will find means to bedeck myself properly! Adèle, then, is a society woman? How I shall enjoy playing such a part! How well you must know how such a type should be acted! I, who have never played anything but the fishwife kind of woman!... Come, quick, sit down there and begin reading."
I began to read, but she had not the patience to sit in her chair: she got up and leant on my back and read over my shoulder with me. After the first act I looked up and she kissed me on my forehead.
"Well?" I asked her.
"Well, it seems to start very oddly! Things will come to a pretty pass if they go on in the same way as they have begun."
"Wait and see."
I began the second act. As I proceeded with my reading I could feel the agitated heaving of the excellent actress's bosom against my shoulder; at the scene between Adèle and Antony, a tear dropped on my manuscript, then a second and a third. I raised my face to kiss hers.
"Oh! how vexatious of you!" she said, "to interrupt in the middle of my enjoyment, do go on!"
I continued, and again she wept.
It will be recollected that Adèle flies at the end of the act.
"Ah!" said Dorval, sobbing, "there's an honest woman! I should never have been able to do that!"