hat will Madame Nerisse say? [_Continuing_] You know,
Mademoiselle, it's not only success that I want. I have a great
ambition. I should like to think that because I've lived there might be
a little less suffering in the world. That's the sort of thing that I
can say to nobody but you.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_tenderly_] Therese has an ardent soul.

THERESE. Yes, Therese has an ardent soul. It was you who said that about
me first, and I think I deserve it. [_Changing her tone_] Here's the
subscriber's book. [_She hands the book and continues in her former
voice_] Like Guyan, I have more tears than I need to spend on my own
sufferings, so I can give the spare ones to other people. And not only
tears, but courage and consolation that I have no opportunity of using
up myself. Do you understand what I mean?

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Yes, I understand, my dear. I see my own youth
over again. [_Sadly_] Oh, I hope that you--but I don't want to rouse up
those old ghosts; I should only distress you. Perhaps lives like mine
are necessary, if it's only to throw into relief lives that are more
beautiful than mine. Keep your lovely dreams. [_A silence_] When I think
that instead of being an old maid I might have been the mother of a girl
like you!

THERESE [_leaning towards her and kissing her hair_] Don't cry.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_tears in her eyes and a smile upon her lips_]
No, no, I won't; and when I think that somewhere or other there's a man
you love!

THERESE [_smiling_] Some day or other I must tell you a whole lot of
things about Rene.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Have you seen him again?

THERESE. Yes.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. But you were supposed not to meet any more.

THERESE [_with a mutinous little smile_] Yes, we were supposed not to
meet any more. One says those things and then one meets all the same. If
Rene had gone on being the feeble and lamentable young man that I parted
from the _Barberine_ evening, I should perhaps have never seen him
again. You don't know what my Rene has done, do you now?

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. No.

THERESE. I've been looking forward so to telling you. [_Eagerly_] Well,
he's quite changed. He's become a different man. Oh, he's not a marvel
of energy even yet, but he's not the helpless youth who was still
feeding out of his father's hands at twenty-five.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. And how has this great improvement come about?

THERESE [_looking at her knowingly_] Yo