“You are delightful, really! What difference does it make to you, if I have a little fun at the expense of that yellow, wizened-up old fellow in the corner, or of that bulky dame yonder, provided that they don’t detect it? Don’t you know that one-half of the world makes sport of the other half?”
“I have never made sport of anybody.”
“Yes, you have; you made sport of us when you pretended to weep for Eléonore.”
“It seems to me, Freluchon, that the time is ill chosen to remind me of the past!”
“Then let me laugh at the present. By the way, I recognize the stout party yonder; it was she who shut her door in my face one night when I went there to ask for Edmond.”
“That is Madame Droguet, a person in very comfortable circumstances.”
“She doesn’t look as if she were comfortable in her corsets! Poor soul! she has tried to make her waist small! Who’s that little fellow behind her, standing on one leg the way canaries do when they sleep?”
“That is her husband; he is crazy over dancing.”
“It will give me pleasure to see him dance.—But where’s your wife?”
“She is dressing; she spends a long time at her toilet; she keeps people waiting a good while.”