However (Armand went on after a pause), though I realized full well that I was still in love, I felt stronger than I had before and, in my desire to be with Marguerite again, there was also a determination to make her see that I now had the upper hand.

She was in the stage-box in the stalls, and quite alone. She looked much altered, as I have told you, and I could not detect on her lips her old unconcerned smile. She had been ill; she still was.

Many are the paths the heart will tread, and many the excuses its finds, that it may reach what it desires!

I could not therefore remain in the corridors any longer, and went back to my seat in the pit, quickly glancing around the auditorium as I did so to see in which box she was sitting.

Although it was already April, she was still dressed for winter and wore velvet.

She considered me for a moment or two, reached for her opera-glasses to get a better look, and clearly thought she recognized me, though without being able to say positively who I was. For when she lowered her opera- glasses, a smile -- that captivating greeting of women -- strayed across her lips in reply to the acknowledgement the seemed to expect from me. But I made no response, as a way of asserting an advantage over her and of appearing to have forgotten while she remembered.

I looked at her so insistently that my eye caught hers.

The curtain went up.

Believing that she was mistaken, she turned her head away.

I have seen Marguerite many times in the theatre. I never once saw her pay the slightest attention to what was happening on stage.

It was thus that I observed her exchanging looks with the person who occupied the box opposite hers; I raised my eyes to this other box, and in it recognized a woman with whom I was reasonably familiar.

For me too, the play was of very little interest, and I had eyes only for her while doing my utmost to ensure that she did not notice.

She had once been a kept woman, had tried the stage, had not succeeded and, counting on her contacts among the fashionable women of Paris, had gone into business and opened a milliner's shop.

What I had foreseen happened: she summoned me to her box.

Prudence Duvernoy -- such was the apt name of the milliner -- was one of those ample women of forty with whom no great diplomatic subtleties are required to get them to say what you wish to know, especially when what you wish to know is as simple as what I had to ask.

In her, I saw a way of contriving a meeting with Marguerite, and I took advantage of a moment when she was looking in my direction to wish her a pleasant evening with hands and eyes.

"Yes, I'm her milliner, and she's a neighbour of mine."

"Yes, protection," Prudence went on. "Poor old thing. He'd be hard put to it to be her lover"

"They say she's a charming girl."

"In number 7. The window of her dressing-room looks on to the window of mine."

"That's right."

"Marguerite Gautier."

"So you live in the rue d'Antin."

"And that is why," I continued, "she's here on her own?"

Prudence then related how Marguerite had become acquainted with the Duke at Bagneres.

"No, but I'd very much like to."

Seizing a moment when she was inaugurating a new round of signals with Marguerite, I asked her: "Who's that you're watching?"

"Don't you know her?"

"No, I'd prefer you to introduce me to her."

"Yes."

"Because she's under the protection of an old Duke who is very jealous."

"Protection, how charming."

"Why?"

"Do you want me to tell her to come across to our box?"

"That's more difficult."

"He will."

"At her place?"

"Do you know her?"

"But who'll drive her home?"

"So he'll come and fetch her?"

"Nobody."

So exact an account of all these detailed happenings must seem very childish, but anything connected with that girl is so present in my recollection that I cannot help but remember it all now.

"Allow me."

"But you're with a friend, I believe."

Marguerite retrieved the bag and, turning round, began chatting to the Duke.

"Allow us, then."

"And who's taking you home?"

I looked.

"He's a charming fellow, very witty. He'll be delighted to meet you."

I was on the point of leaving when Prudence said: "Ah! there's the Duke just coming into Marguerite's box."

"Any minute now."

"What's this friend of yours?"

And indeed, a man of seventy had just sat down behind the young woman and was giving her a bag of sweets which, with a smile, she began to eat at once, and then she pushed them across the front ledge of her box with a sign to Prudence which could be translated as: 'Do you want some?'

"Off you go."

"Splendid. I'll go and tell my friend."

"No," was Prudence's reply.

"Very well, then, it's agreed, all three of us will leave after this play is finished, for I've seen the last one before."

I went down to let Gaston know what I had just arranged for him and me.

He was game.

We left our seats in the stalls and made for Madame Duvernoy's box.

When he reached the boulevard, he handed her up into a phaeton, which he drove himself, and they disappeared, borne away at a trot by two superb horses.

We had barely opened the door leading out of the orchestra stalls when we were forced to stop and make way for Marguerite and the Duke who were leaving.

We entered Prudence's box.

I would have given ten years of my life to have been in that old man's shoes.

"Is the old Duke with your neighbour?" I asked Prudence.

I felt that I was imperceptibly drawing closer to Marguerite. It was not long before I had turned the conversation round to her.

When the play was over, we went down and got an ordinary cab which took us to 7 rue d'Antin. When we reached her door, Prudence invited us up to view her business premises, which we had never seen before, and of which she seemed very proud. You can imagine how eagerly I accepted.

"But she'll be terribly bored," said Gaston.

"We usually spend our evenings together or, when she gets home, she calls down to me. She never goes to bed before two in the morning. She can't get to sleep before then."

"Because she's got consumption, and she's almost always feverish."

"No, no; she's most likely on her own."

"I never see anybody staying behind when I leave, but I don't say there's nobody comes after I've gone. When I'm there of an evening, I often come across a certain Count de N who thinks he can get somewhere with her by paying calls at eleven o'clock and sending her all the jewels she could possibly want; but she can't stand the sight of him. She's wrong, he's a very rich young man. I tell her from time to time, not that it does a bit of good: "My dear child, he's just the man for you!" She listens to me well enough ordinarily, but then she turns her back on me and answers that he is too stupid. He may be stupid, I grant you, but he'd set her up on a good footing, whereas that old Duke could die from one day to the next. Old men are selfish; his family are always on at him about his affection for Marguerite: that makes two reasons why he'll not leave her a penny. I'm forever going on at her about it, but she says that there'll still be time enough to say yes to the Count when the Duke's dead."

"Why not?"

"Doesn't she have any lovers?" I asked.

"Hush!" said Prudence, pricking up her ears.

Gaston stopped.

"Come along, gentlemen, off with you," Madame Duvernoy told us.

"She's calling me, I think."

We listened.

"I'm going to Marguerite's."

"Oh, poor Marguerite!" said Gaston, sitting down at the piano and playing a waltz, "I had no idea. Still, I have noticed that she hasn't seemed as jolly for some time now."

"Why should we go?"

"It's not always much fun," Prudence continued, "living the way she does. I can tell you it wouldn't do for me. I'd send the old relic packing. He's a dull old thing: he calls her his daughter, looks after her like a little child, and is forever hovering round her. I'm pretty sure that even at this time of night one of his servants is hanging about in the street to see who comes out and especially who goes in."

And indeed, a voice was calling Prudence.

"So that's what you mean by hospitality," Gaston said laughingly, "we'll be off when it suits us."

"I won't have it."

"We'll wait here."

"In that case, we'll come with you."

"I shall introduce him."

"I want you to come at once."

"I know Marguerite," said Gaston, "it's perfectly all right for me to drop in to pay my respects."

"I have told them."

"I've been calling you for ten minutes," said Marguerite from her window in a tone that verged on the peremptory.

Prudence ran into her dressing- room. I followed with Gaston. She opened the window.

"What's stopping you?"

"But what do they want?"

"They want to see you."

"Because Count de N is still here, and he's boring me to death."

"Impossible."

"That's even more out of the question."

"I've got two young men here who won't go away."

"After turning the place upside down?"

"Tell them you've got to go out."

"You know one of them, Monsieur Gaston R."

We hid ourselves so that we could not be seen from outside.

"Well, they can stay there; when they see you've gone, they'll leave."

"I can't just now."

Once more we heard Marguerite's voice still calling Prudence.

"What do you want with me?"

"But Armand doesn't know her."

"Why?"

"What are their names?"

We followed Prudence down the stairs.

"I knew it," said Gaston, "I knew she'd be delighted to see us."

Marguerite shut her window, and Prudence shut hers.

"Delighted isn't the word," answered Prudence, putting on her hat and shawl, "she'll see you to make the Count go away. Try to be more agreeable than him, or otherwise -- I know Marguerite -- she'll take it out on me."

"Monsieur Armand Duval. Don't you know him?"

When we arrived at the door of the apartment with which you are acquainted, my heart was beating so loud that I could not think.

"No; but bring them all the same. Anything would be better than the Count. I shall be waiting for you, so hurry."

I was shaking; I had a feeling that this visit would have a great influence on my life.

Marguerite, who had for an instant recalled my face, did not remember my name. I would have been better pleased to be remembered in an unflattering light than forgotten altogether like this.

"Ah, yes, I know him; and the other?"

I was even more apprehensive than the evening I had been introduced in the box at the Opera-Comique.

The piano stopped.

A few chords from a piano reached our ears.

A woman, who looked rather more like a lady's companion than a maid, opened the door to us.

Prudence rang the bell.

We passed through the drawing- room, and from the drawing-room into the parlour, which was at that time exactly as you have seen it since.

A young man was leaning against the mantelpiece.

Marguerite, seated at the piano, was letting her fingers run over the keys, starting more pieces than she finished.

Hearing Prudence's voice, Marguerite rose to her feet and, coming up to us after first exchanging a look of gratitude with Madame Duvernoy, she said to us: "Do come in, gentlemen, you are most welcome."

Everything about the scene exuded boredom which stemmed, on the man's side, from an embarrassing awareness of his own dullness and, on the woman's, from the visit of this lugubrious personage.