"To see what is beautiful, Michel, isn't that all? When you draw a beautiful figure, I take more pleasure in looking at it, perhaps, than you do who drew it."
"But if you were there, it would be on condition that you were hidden in some hole, for if they saw you, they would turn you out; you could not even show yourself, much less dance!"
"Very true; but I should see the others dance, and that would be much."
"You are a child. Good-night."
"I see that you aren't willing to take me!"
"No, surely not; I can't. They would turn you out, and I should have to break the head of some insolent lackey for insulting you when you were on my arm."
"What! isn't there some little corner no bigger than your hand, where I could hide? I am so small! Look, Michel, I could get into your cupboard. Anyway, you could take me to the door without taking me in, and father would not be angry to know that I was there with you."
Michel preached a beautiful sermon to Mila on the subject of childish curiosity, and the violent instinctive longing which she felt to intoxicate herself with the spectacle of patrician grandeur. He forgot that he was consumed by the same longing, and that he was anxious to be alone so that he might give way to it.
Mila listened to reason when Michel told her that he was going to assist his father to overlook the decorations of the ball; but she heaved a deep sigh, none the less.
"Well," she said, tearing herself away from the window, "it's no use to think any more about it. However, it's my own fault; for if I had had any idea that I should be so wild to go, I could very easily have asked the princess to invite me."