g Marguerite, has actually died of
consumption. But she does not give up her profession; and the duke in a
manner, though not willingly, winks at it. One evening at the theatre a
young man, Armand Duval, who, though by no means innocent, is shy and
_gauche_, is introduced to her, and she laughs at him. But he falls
frantically in love with her, and after some interval meets her again.
The passion becomes mutual, and for some time she gives herself up
wholly to him. But the duke cannot stand this open _affiche_, and
withdraws his allowances. Duval is on the point of ruining himself (he
is a man of small means, partly derived from his father) for her, while
she intends to sell all she has, pay her debts, and, as we may say,
plunge into mutual ruin with him. Then appears the father, who at last
makes a direct and effective appeal to her. She returns to business,
enraging her lover, who departs abroad. Before he comes back, her
health, and with it her professional capacity, breaks down, and she dies
in agony, leaving pathetic explanations of what has driven him away from
her. A few points in this bare summary may be enlarged on presently.
Even from it a certain resemblance, partly of a topsy-turvy kind, may be
perceived by a reader of not less than ordinary acuteness to _Manon
Lescaut_. The suggestion, such as it is, is quite frankly admitted, and
an actual copy of Prevost's masterpiece figures not unimportantly in the
tale.[355] Of the difference between the two, again presently.

The later editions of _La Dame aux Camelias_ open with an "Introduction"
by Jules Janin, dealing with a certain Marie Duplessis--the recently
living original, as we are told, of Marguerite Gautier. A good deal has
been said, not by any means always approvingly, of this system of
"introductions," especially to novels. In the present instance I should
say that the proceeding was dangerous but effective--perhaps not
entirely in the way in which it was intended to be so. "Honest
Janin,"[356] as Thackeray (who had deservedly rapped his knuckles
earlier for a certain mixture of ignorance and impudence) called him
later, was in his degree almost as "clever" a man as young Dumas; but
his kind was different, and it did involve the derogatory connotation of
cleverness. It is enough to say of the present subject that it displays,
in almost the highest strength, the insincerity and superficiality of
matter and thought which accompanied Janin's bright and almo