"That little suffices to penetrate your inmost thought, Madame Materialist."
"I say again, Madeleine, you are growing silly."
"Oh, oh, not so silly!"
Then, after a moment's silence, the marquise resumed, with a smile:
"If you only knew, Sophie, the strange, extraordinary, I might say incomprehensible things that have come in my life! What extravagant adventures have happened to me since our separation! My physician and my friend, the celebrated Doctor Gasterini, a great philosopher as well, has told me a hundred times there is not a creature in the world as singularly endowed as myself."
"Explain your meaning."
"Later, perhaps."
"Why not now?"
"If I had a sorrow to reveal, do you think I would hesitate? But, notwithstanding all that has been extraordinary in my life, or perhaps for that particular reason, I have been the happiest of women. Oh, my God! wait, for this moment I have almost a sorrow for my want of heart and memory."
"A want of memory?"