"Tell me, in the first place, that you know perfectly well that he will arrive to-morrow."
"I know it through the reporters, as you say. To-day, it is through the reporters that one learns news of one's friends."
"The important fact is that you know him, and it is because I am particularly anxious to hear Monsieur de Rosas that I come to ask you to present me at Madame Marsy's."
"Oh! that is it?" Guy began.
"Yes, that is it. I am weary. I am crazy over the Orient. You remember Félicien David's Desert that I used to play for you on the piano? I would like to hear this story of travel. It would make me forget Paris."
"You shall hear it, my dear Marianne. Madame Marsy asked me to introduce Vaudrey to her the other evening. You ask me to present you to Madame Marsy. I am both crimp and introducer; but I am delighted to introduce you to a salon that you will, I trust, find less gloomy than your little room of the Jardin des Plantes. In fact, I thought you were one of Sabine Marsy's friends. Did I dream so?"
"I have occasionally met her, and have found her very agreeable. She invited me to call on her, but I have not dared—my hunger for solitude—my den yonder—"
"Is the little room forbidden ground, is one absolutely prohibited from seeing it?" said Guy with a smile.
"It is not forbidden, but it is difficult. Moreover, I have nothing hidden from my friends," said Marianne, "on one condition, which is, that they are my friends—"
She emphasized the words: "Nothing but my friends."