ed her disgust of her fellow-actress, but
Madame Doulce, who was prudent and occasionally took _dejeuner_ with
Jeanne Perrin, changed the subject.

"Well, my darling, so you've got the part of Angelique. Only remember
what I told you: your gestures should be somewhat restrained, and you
yourself a little stiff. That is the secret of the _ingenue_. Beware of
your charming natural suppleness. Young girls in a 'stock' piece ought
to be just a trifle doll-like. It's good form. The costume requires it.
You see, Felicie, what you must do above all, when you are playing in
_La Mere confidente_, which is a delightful play----"

"Oh," interrupted Felicie, "so long as I have a good part, I don't care
a fig for the play. Besides, I am not particularly in love with
Marivaux----What are you laughing at, doctor? Have I put my foot in it?
Isn't _La Mere confidente_ by Marivaux?"

"To be sure it is!"

"Well, then? You are always trying to muddle me. I was saying that
Angelique gets on my nerves. I should prefer a part with more meat in
it, something out of the ordinary. This evenings especially, the part
gives me the creeps."

"All the more likely that you'll do well in it, my pet," said Madame
Doulce. "We never enter more thoroughly into our parts than when we do
so by main force, and in spite of ourselves. I could give you many
examples. I myself, in _La Vivandiere d'Austerlitz_, staggered the house
by my gaiety of tone, when I had just been informed that my Doulce, so
great an artist and so good a husband, had had an epileptic fit in the
orchestra at the Odeon, just as he was picking up his cornet."

"Why do they insist on my being nothing but an _ingenue_?" inquired
Nanteuil, who wanted to play the woman in love, the brilliant coquette,
and every part a woman could play.

"That is quite natural," persisted Madame Doulce. "Comedy is an
imitative art; and you imitate an art all the better for not feeling it
yourself."

"Do not delude yourself, my child," said the doctor to Felicie. "Once an
_ingenue_, always an _ingenue_. You are born an Angelique or a Dorine, a
Celimene or a Madame Pernelle. On the stage, some women are always
twenty, others are always thirty, others again are always sixty. As for
you, Mademoiselle Nanteuil, you will always be eighteen, and you will
always be an _ingenue_."

"I am quite content with my work," replied Nanteuil, "but you cannot
expect me to play all _ingenues_ with the same pleasure. There