is one
part, for example, which I long to play, and that is Agnes in _L'Ecole
des femmes_."

At the mere mention of the name of Agnes, the doctor murmured
delightedly from among his cushions:

"Mes yeux ont-ils du mal pour en donner au monde?"

"Agnes, that's a part if you like!" exclaimed Nanteuil. "I have asked
Pradel to give it me."

Pradel, the manager of the theatre, was an ex-comedian, a wideawake,
genial fellow, who had got rid of his illusions and nourished no
exaggerated hopes. He loved peace, books and women. Nanteuil had every
reason to speak well of Pradel, and she referred to him without any
feeling of ill will, and with frank directness.

"It was shameful, disgusting, rotten of him," she said. "He wouldn't let
me play Agnes and gave the part to Falempin. I must say, though, that
when I asked him I didn't go the right way about it. While she knows how
to tackle him, if you like! But what do I care! If Pradel doesn't let
me play Agnes, he can go to the deuce, and his dirty Punch and Judy show
too!"

Madame Doulce continued to lavish her unheeded precepts. She was an
actress of merits but she was old and worn out, and no longer obtained
any engagements. She gave advice to beginners, wrote their letters for
them, and thus, in the morning or evenings earned what was almost every
day her only meal.

"Doctor," asked Felicie, while Madame Michon was fastening a black
velvet ribbon round her neck: "You say that my fits of dizziness are due
to my stomach. Are you sure of that?"

Before Trublet could answer, Madame Doulce exclaimed that fits of
dizziness always proceeded from the stomach, and that two or three hours
after meals she experienced a feeling of distension in hers, and she
thereupon asked the doctor for a remedy.

Felicie, however, was thinking, for she was capable of thought.

"Doctor," she said suddenly, "I want to ask you a question, which you
may possibly think a droll one; but I do really want to know whether,
considering that you know just what there is in the human body, and that
you have seen all the things we have inside us, it doesn't embarrass
you, at certain moments, in your dealings with women? It seems to me
that the idea of all that must disgust you."

From the depths of his cushions Trublet, wafting a kiss to Felicie,
replied:

"My dear child, there is no more exquisitely delicate, rich, and
beautiful tissue than the skin of a pretty woman. That is what I was
telling mys