"But I haven't ever seen the Opéra ball. I've been to Valentino, Sainte-Cécile, and the Salle Barthélemy."
"Enough, enough! for heaven's sake, keep quiet, and above all things, remember not to call me by name when you speak to me. You must see that it isn't worth while for me to disguise myself carefully if you are going to shout my name in the ears of everybody who passes."
"I only mentioned your given name."
"And that's just the one that people know best; and as it isn't so common as yours, anybody would know it was I."
"That's so; your name's a very pretty one—like a name in a novel; did your parents give it to you, or did you take it?"
The gray domino did not think it best to answer this question except by a slight shrug, which clearly signified: "Mon Dieu! how stupid you are!"
But the black domino, who perhaps did not understand pantomime, went on talking none the less.
"For my part, I'd rather be named Thélénie than Héloïse: Héloïse is very common, and then it seems there's some story about a Héloïse and her lover, a Monsieur Abelard. I don't know it myself, it must be an old story, for I've never read it in the papers. But it seems that it's laughable, for the men who make love to me say: 'O lovely Héloïse, I'd like to be your lover, but not your Abelard!'—I always pretend to understand, for I don't want to seem ignorant; I wouldn't dare ask them to tell me about the adventures of those two, so I just laugh and say: 'Tell me, why don't you want to be my Abelard? you're very hard to suit!' Then they laugh harder than ever.—I say, Thélénie, you know such a lot of things, you've had an education—tell me that story, won't you?"
Tall Thélénie, for we know now the pearl-gray domino's name, thanks to her companion's prattle, suddenly placed her hand on the black domino's and said:
"Hush! I think I see him—that young man dressed as a postilion, at the left, with a dairymaid on his arm; look, I say!"