"If he meant by that that all women are sensitive, he was indeed an old greenhorn. He ought to have seen Fagette; he would soon have discovered whether it was easy to get anything out of her in the domain--how did he express it?--of physical and moral sensibility."
"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.
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 Odéon much longer."
"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."
