“Or that coquetry and falsity take the place nowadays of love and friendship?”
“Such substitutes shouldn’t be allowed!”
“Ah! my dear Bertrand, we should be too fortunate if all women were faithful.”
“True, we should be too fortunate.”
“And yet the whole business of living would be intolerably monotonous then.”
“Ah! do you think it would injure business?”
“You see, Bertrand, we must take the world as it is.”
“We have no help for that.”
“But when I have found a woman who will love me for myself, who will be incapable of deceiving me, who will try to please nobody but myself alone, why then——”
“Then, lieutenant?”