"Ah! if you really do owe me anything, it depends only on you to pay the debt."
"How, pray?"
"You cannot guess, madame?"
"No, monsieur; I am not good at guessing."
"Oh! I beg your pardon—but you should be better able than any other to divine the thoughts that come from the heart."
"Why I, more than another?"
"Because there is a something in your eyes which indicates their perspicacity."
"If my eyes have such a peculiar expression, I shall not dare to raise them again."
"Oh! do not deprive me of the pleasure of looking at them; that would be a punishment."
"Come, come, monsieur, don't talk to me in this way; you are in the habit of making pretty speeches to all women, no matter how little they may deserve them; but, as a general rule, they are accustomed to your language, to your flatteries, and they laugh at them because they know that they must not take too seriously the gallant speeches of a man to whom love is only a pleasant pastime. But I am not one of those women, monsieur! I go into society very little, and the life that artists lead is entirely unfamiliar to me. You will agree, will you not, that if I should take what you have said to me as being said in earnest, if I should place any reliance on your words, I should make a great mistake and should very soon have reason to repent?"