“But I know Marie; she would like you to do it.”
“She is incapable of liking it,” said Raoul, vehemently.
“Oh! then you do know her well?”
Nathan laughed; he, the maker of scenes, to be trapped into playing one himself!
“Comedy is no longer there,” he said, nodding at the stage; “it is here, in you.”
He took his opera-glass and looked about the theatre to recover countenance.
“You are not angry with me, I hope?” said the marquise, giving him a sidelong glance. “I should have had your secret somehow. Let us make peace. Come and see me; I receive every Wednesday, and I am sure the dear countess will never miss an evening if I let her know you will be there. So I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes between four and five o’clock, and I’ll be kind and add you to the little set of favorites I admit at that hour.”
“Ah!” cried Raoul, “how the world judges; it calls you unkind.”
“So I am when I need to be,” she replied. “We must defend ourselves. But your countess I adore; you will be contented with her; she is charming. Your name will be the first engraved upon her heart with that infantine joy that makes a lad cut the initials of his love on the barks of trees.”
Raoul was aware of the danger of such conversations, in which a Parisian woman excels; he feared the marquise would extract some admission from him which she would instantly turn into ridicule among her friends. He therefore withdrew, prudently, as Lady Dudley entered.