express it?--of physical and moral sensibility."

And she added with gentle pride:

"Don't you make any mistake, Robert, there's not such a heap of women
like myself."

As he was drawing her into his arms, she released herself.

"You are hindering me."

Sitting down and doubling herself up in order to undo her boots, she
continued.

"Do you know, Dr. Socrates told me the other day that he had seen an
apparition. He saw a donkey-boy who had murdered a little girl. I dreamt
of the story last night, only in my dream I could not make out whether
the donkey-boy was a man or a woman. What a mix-up the dream was!
Talking of Dr. Socrates, just guess whose lover he is--why, the lady who
keeps the circulating library in the Rue Mazarine. She is no longer very
young, but she is very intelligent. Do you think he is faithful to her?
I'll take off my stockings, it's more becoming."

And she went on to tell him a story of the theatre:

"I really don't think I shall remain at the Odeon much longer."

"Why?"

"You'll see. Pradel said to me to-day, before rehearsal 'My dear little
Nanteuil, there has never been anything between us. It is ridiculous.'
He was extremely decorous, but he gave me to understand that we were in
a false position with regard to one another, which could not go on
indefinitely. You must know that Pradel has established a rule. Formerly
he used to pick and choose among his _pensionnaires_. He had favourites,
and that caused an outcry. Nowadays, for the better administration of
the theatre, he takes them all, even those he has no liking for, even
those who are distasteful to him. There are no more favourites.
Everything goes splendidly. Ah, he's a director all through, is Pradel!"

As Robert, in the bed, listened in silence, she went up to him and shook
him:

"Then it's all the same to you if I carry on with Pradel?"

"No, my dear, it would not be all the same to me. But nothing I might
say would prevent it."

Bending over him, she caressed him ardently, pretending to threaten and
to punish him; and she cried:

"Then you don't really love me, that you are not jealous. I insist that
you shall be jealous."

Then, suddenly, she moved away from him, and hitching over her left
shoulder her chemise, which had slipped down under her right breast, she
loitered in front of the dressing-table and inquired uneasily:

"Robert, you have not brought anything here from the other room?"

"Nothing."

Thereup