“You are not dancing?” I said to Caroline.
“Oh, no! I shouldn’t care to dance here, except with somebody whom I know very well. Besides, I am like you, I no longer care for dancing. I don’t intend to go to any balls this winter—or into society at all. All the things that I used to enjoy so much bore me terribly now. I shall stay at home—alone—with my thoughts. To be able to think at one’s leisure is such a great satisfaction sometimes!”
She looked at me, then we both lowered our eyes and relapsed into silence. Meanwhile Monsieur Roquencourt was almost quarrelling with his neighbor.
“I tell you, monsieur, that Dugazon never played Moncade in L’École des Bourgeois!”
“I beg your pardon, but I saw him.”
“You are mistaken—it was Fleury.”
“No, it was Dugazon.”
“But it is impossible; the part wasn’t in his line. It is as if you should say that you had seen me play Hamlet or Œdipe; it is absolutely the same thing.”
“I don’t know what you have played, but I saw Dugazon play the Marquis de Moncade.”
“Oh! that is enough to make a man jump to the ceiling!”