Thérèse [leaning towards her and kissing her hair] Don't cry.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot [tears in her eyes and a smile upon her lips] No, no, I won't; and when I think that somewhere or other there's a man you love!
Thérèse [smiling] Some day or other I must tell you a whole lot of things about René.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Have you seen him again?
Thérèse. Yes.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. But you were supposed not to meet any more.
Thérèse [with a mutinous little smile] Yes, we were supposed not to meet any more. One says those things and then one meets all the same. If René had gone on being the feeble and lamentable young man that I parted from the Barberine evening, I should perhaps have never seen him again. You don't know what my René has done, do you now?
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. No.
Thérèse. I've been looking forward so to telling you. [Eagerly] Well, he's quite changed. He's become a different man. Oh, he's not a marvel of energy even yet, but he's not the helpless youth who was still feeding out of his father's hands at twenty-five.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. And how has this great improvement come about?