"Oh!" Sixtine replied, "the sensation is quite different. First of all, not every one who wishes it, can be robbed. It is not even enough to let one's door ajar, Monsieur d'Entragues."
He felt that she had pronounced those last words in an insidious voice, but why? While waiting to understand, he responded:
"That itself would be quite a childish system. One usually places sentinels to guard the treasure chests and one provides locks for odd boxes. The spice in the pleasure of robbing lies in forcing, breaking, or taking a thing to pieces. True artists are repelled when there is nothing to do except thrust out the hand. But this is the most elementary ethics: no pleasure without effort."
"You are speaking of robbers, I of persons who are robbed. You can belong only to the one, I to the other class, the class that is at the mercy of an eventual rifling. I wanted to explain that it requires more than that the door should be ajar or, in fine, easy to open, for if one perfects the fastenings too thoroughly, the risk is taken of being assured a truly uncivil security. Well, more than all this, it is needful that there be visible or suspected objects to steal; it is needful that, by appearances, by external and attractive promises, the thief be tempted."
"You have anticipated me, Madame, in awarding yourself this personal compliment. I was about to make it. But you know, better than I do, your gifts and all that might draw curious and thievish hands to the dreamed of coffer."
"Too much frankness and irony, Monsieur d'Entragues. You were not born a thief."
"Alas! I have no hiding place secure enough for such larceny. My left hand would not know what to do with what my right hand pilfered."
The somewhat brutal candor of this disinterestedness did not seem to wound her. On the contrary, she thought:
"He is no fool. Another would have thrown himself at my imprudence, would instantly have urged me _to let myself be taken!_"
For his part, Hubert, seeing that the nuts were decidely meaty and not too tasteless, reflected:
"I will amuse myself again with throwing a few stones at the branches."
"What end are you aiming at? Love is too fleeting for your stability, let us admit. In that case, where does your life lead? Ah! poet, to success?"