"Oh! mon Dieu, you put yourself to very great trouble for me," said Julie; "but is it worth while? I give you my word that I am quite willing to be poor; I should probably be no more bored than I am now."
"And yet you are beautifully arrayed and intending to pass the evening in company."
"No, I am going to change my dress; I don't expect to go out. With whom should I go out, pray? I am at odds with Madame d'Ancourt, the only person to whose house I might venture to go alone in the evening, as she was my schoolmate at the convent. I am not intimate enough with any of the others to appear at their houses without a chaperone; Madame Desmorges, who might act in that capacity for me, is indolent beyond words; my cousin the présidente is not received in aristocratic society, and the Marquise d'Orbe is in the country. Really I am terribly bored, Monsieur Thierry, I am too much alone, and there are days when I can do nothing, having no heart for anything."
It was the first time that Julie had complained of her situation. Marcel looked at her attentively and reflected.
"You must divert your mind a little; why don't you go to the play sometimes?"
"But I haven't a box anywhere now; you know very well that I can no longer afford it."
"An additional reason for going wherever you please. A box by the year is downright slavery; it puts you on exhibition and makes a chaperone a necessity. There are some small pleasures which the bourgeois indulge in at small expense and without inconvenient display. To-day, for instance, I am to take my wife to the Comédie-Française. We have hired a closed box on the ground floor."
"Ah! what a pleasure it must be to go there! You are not seen at all, are you? You enjoy the play, you can laugh or cry without being hooted by the gallery. Have you a place for me, Monsieur Thierry?"
"I have two; I intended to offer one to my aunt."
"And the other to her son? In that case——"