However (continued Armand after a pause), while I knew myself to be still in love with her, I felt more sure of myself, and part of my desire to speak to Marguerite again was a wish to make her see that I was stronger than she.

How many ways does the heart take, how many reasons does it invent for itself, in order to arrive at what it wants!

I could not remain in the corridor, and I returned to my place in the stalls, looking hastily around to see what box she was in. She was in a ground-floor box, quite alone. She had changed, as I have told you, and no longer wore an indifferent smile on her lips. She had suffered; she was still suffering. Though it was April, she was still wearing a winter costume, all wrapped up in furs.

I gazed at her so fixedly that my eyes attracted hers. She looked at me for a few seconds, put up her opera-gla.s.s to see me better, and seemed to think she recognised me, without being quite sure who I was, for when she put down her gla.s.ses, a smile, that charming, feminine salutation, flitted across her lips, as if to answer the bow which she seemed to expect; but I did not respond, so as to have an advantage over her, as if I had forgotten, while she remembered. Supposing herself mistaken, she looked away.

The curtain went up. I have often seen Marguerite at the theatre. I never saw her pay the slightest attention to what was being acted. As for me, the performance interested me equally little, and I paid no attention to anything but her, though doing my utmost to keep her from noticing it.

Presently I saw her glancing across at the person who was in the opposite box; on looking, I saw a woman with whom I was quite familiar.

She had once been a kept woman, and had tried to go on the stage, had failed, and, relying on her acquaintance with fashionable people in Paris, had gone into business and taken a milliner's shop. I saw in her a means of meeting with Marguerite, and profited by a moment in which she looked my way to wave my hand to her. As I expected, she beckoned to me to come to her box.

Prudence Duvernoy (that was the milliner's auspicious name) was one of those fat women of forty with whom one requires very little diplomacy to make them understand what one wants to know, especially when what one wants to know is as simple as what I had to ask of her.

I took advantage of a moment when she was smiling across at Marguerite to ask her, "Whom are you looking at?"

"Marguerite Gautier."

"You know her?"

"Yes, I am her milliner, and she is a neighbour of mine."

"Do you live in the Rue d'Antin?"

"No. 7. The window of her dressing-room looks on to the window of mine."

"They say she is a charming girl."

"Don't you know her?"

"No, but I should like to."

"Shall I ask her to come over to our box?"

"No, I would rather for you to introduce me to her."

"At her own house?"

"Yes.

"That is more difficult."

"Why?"

"Because she is under the protection of a jealous old duke."

"'Protection' is charming."

"Yes, protection," replied Prudence. "Poor old man, he would be greatly embarra.s.sed to offer her anything else."

Prudence then told me how Marguerite had made the acquaintance of the duke at Bagneres.

"That, then," I continued, "is why she is alone here?"

"Precisely."

"But who will see her home?"

"He will."

"He will come for her?"

"In a moment."

"And you, who is seeing you home?"

"No one."

"May I offer myself?"

"But you are with a friend, are you not?"

"May we offer, then?"

"Who is your friend?"

"A charming fellow, very amusing. He will be delighted to make your acquaintance."

"Well, all right; we will go after this piece is over, for I know the last piece."

"With pleasure; I will go and tell my friend."

"Go, then. Ah," added Prudence, as I was going, "there is the duke just coming into Marguerite's box."

I looked at him. A man of about seventy had sat down behind her, and was giving her a bag of sweets, into which she dipped at once, smiling. Then she held it out toward Prudence, with a gesture which seemed to say, "Will you have some?"

"No," signalled Prudence.

Marguerite drew back the bag, and, turning, began to talk with the duke.

It may sound childish to tell you all these details, but everything relating to Marguerite is so fresh in my memory that I can not help recalling them now.

I went back to Gaston and told him of the arrangement I had made for him and for me. He agreed, and we left our stalls to go round to Mme.

Duvernoy's box. We had scarcely opened the door leading into the stalls when we had to stand aside to allow Marguerite and the duke to pa.s.s.

I would have given ten years of my life to have been in the old man's place.

When they were on the street he handed her into a phaeton, which he drove himself, and they were whirled away by two superb horses.

We returned to Prudence's box, and when the play was over we took a cab and drove to 7, Rue d'Antin. At the door, Prudence asked us to come up and see her showrooms, which we had never seen, and of which she seemed very proud. You can imagine how eagerly I accepted. It seemed to me as if I was coming nearer and nearer to Marguerite. I soon turned the conversation in her direction.