"Sh! enough! you mustn't seem to know.—Come, Miflorès, and let me present you to these ladies. You are bashful, I know, but that shouldn't keep you from offering the fair sex all the homage that is due them."
Dodichet's assurance, his loquacity and his fine phrases, had the effect that they usually have upon people with little or no wit; everybody considered him delightful, and especially Juliette, to whom he whispered, as he introduced Miflorès:
"Don't be alarmed; he won't marry you. I am a friend of Lucien!"
Juliette could not restrain a faint cry of delight.
"What's the matter?" Aldegonde inquired.
"Nothing!" Dodichet replied; "my foot involuntarily struck mademoiselle's.—I didn't hurt you, I trust?"
"Oh, no! monsieur, you didn't hurt me."
"Then all is for the best, as Voltaire says in Candide. But is it in Candide? Faith! I am not sure; I have read so much in my life that I am all mixed up; I confuse my authors. Somebody asked me lately who wrote Le Mariage de Figaro, and I said Monsieur d'Ennery. I was wrong."
"My friend Brid'oison here bears the name of one of the characters in that play," said Monsieur Mirotaine.
"Ah! monsieur's name is Brid'oison? A fine name! a pretty name! which recalls a very—intellectual character."