I answered with a smile.
"I won't ask you any more questions," she continued; "I know that you are not likely to confide the person's name, nor her rank, nor her place of abode to me; indeed, those things don't interest me. But I may ask you whether you are in raptures or in despair, and you must tell me if I can be of any use to you."
"If I need you, I will tell you so," I replied; "and as for telling you whether I am in raptures or in despair, I can assure you that I am in neither as yet."
"Very good! very good! beware of one no less than of the other; for, in either case, there's no occasion for such great excitement."
"What do you know about it?"
"My dear Lelio," she replied in a sententious tone, "let us suppose that you are in raptures. What is one yielding woman more or less in the life of a man of the stage: of the stage, where the women are so beautiful and so sparkling with wit? Do you propose to lose your head over a conquest in aristocratic society? Vanity! mere vanity! Society women are as inferior to us in every respect as vanity is to glory."
"That is true modesty, and I congratulate you," I replied; "but might we not give the aphorism another turn, and say that it is vanity, not love, which brings society men to the feet of actresses?"
"Oh! but what a difference there is!" cried Checchina. "A great and beautiful actress is a creature privileged by nature and exalted by the prestige of art; exposed to the eyes of men in all the splendor of her beauty, her talent and her renown, is it not natural that she should arouse admiration and kindle desire? Why, then, should you actors, who triumph over the great majority of us before the great nobles do; you, who marry us when we are inclined to settle down, and who assert your rights over us when we have passionate hearts; you, who allow others to play the rôle of magnificent lovers and who are always the preferred lovers, or at all events the friends of our hearts—why should you turn your thoughts toward these patrician women who smile at you with their lips only, and applaud you with the tips of their fingers? Ah! Lelio, Lelio! I am afraid that in this instance your good sense has gone astray in some idiotic adventure. If I were in your place, rather than be flattered by the ogling of some middle-aged marchioness, I would turn my attention to some pretty chorus-girl, La Torquata, or La Gargani. Yes! yes!" she cried, becoming more earnest as she saw me smiling; "such girls as those are apparently more forward, but I maintain that they are in reality less corrupt than your salon Cidalisas. You would not be obliged to play a long sentimental comedy with them, or engage in a wretched contest of bright sayings. But that's just like you men! The crest on a carriage, the livery of a footman, those are enough to embellish in your eyes the first titled harridan who bestows a patronizing glance on you."
"My dear friend," I replied, "all that you say is most sensible; but your argument is weak in that it is not based upon a single fact. For my honor's sake, you might, I think, have assumed that old age and ugliness are not indispensable qualities in any patrician who falls in love with me. There have been some who were young and lovely who have had eyes in their heads, and since you compel me to say absurd things in absurd language, in order to close your mouth, let me tell you that the object of my flame is fifteen years old, and that she is as beautiful as the goddess Cypris whose exploits you learn by heart in bouts-rimés."
"Lelio!" cried Checchina, laughing heartily, "you are the most insufferable coxcomb that I ever met."