"Oh! if I had but been pretty, what adventures I would have had!" cried Lisbeth. "That is your justification."
"But you would have acted only at the dictates of your heart," said Madame Marneffe, with a sigh.
"Pooh! Marneffe is a dead man they have forgotten to bury," replied Lisbeth. "The Baron is as good as your husband; Crevel is your adorer; it seems to me that you are quite in order—like every other married woman."
"No, it is not that, dear, adorable thing; that is not where the shoe pinches; you do not choose to understand."
"Yes, I do," said Lisbeth. "The unexpressed factor is part of my revenge; what can I do? I am working it out."
"I love Wenceslas so that I am positively growing thin, and I can never see him," said Valerie, throwing up her arms. "Hulot asks him to dinner, and my artist declines. He does not know that I idolize him, the wretch! What is his wife after all? Fine flesh! Yes, she is handsome, but I—I know myself—I am worse!"
"Be quite easy, my child, he will come," said Lisbeth, in the tone of a nurse to an impatient child. "He shall."
"But when?"
"This week perhaps."
"Give me a kiss."