Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

"Here they are."

She looked at me as she took them. I dropped my eyes and blushed.

She leaned across to her neighbour and said something in her ear, at

which both laughed. Evidently I was the cause of their mirth, and

my embarrassment increased. At that time I had as mistress a very

affectionate and sentimental little person, whose sentiment and whose

melancholy letters amused me greatly. I realized the pain I must have

given her by what I now experienced, and for five minutes I loved her as

no woman was ever loved.

Marguerite ate her raisins glaces without taking any more notice of me.

The friend who had introduced me did not wish to let me remain in so

ridiculous a position.

"Marguerite," he said, "you must not be surprised if M. Duval says

nothing: you overwhelm him to such a degree that he can not find a word

to say."

"I should say, on the contrary, that he has only come with you because

it would have bored you to come here by yourself."

"If that were true," I said, "I should not have begged Ernest to ask

your permission to introduce me."

"Perhaps that was only in order to put off the fatal moment."

However little one may have known women like Marguerite, one can not but

know the delight they take in pretending to be witty and in teasing the

people whom they meet for the first time. It is no doubt a return for

the humiliations which they often have to submit to on the part of those

whom they see every day.

To answer them properly, one requires a certain knack, and I had not had

the opportunity of acquiring it; besides, the idea that I had formed

of Marguerite accentuated the effects of her mockery. Nothing that dame

from her was indifferent to me. I rose to my feet, saying in an altered

voice, which I could not entirely control: "If that is what you think of me, madame, I have only to ask your pardon

for my indiscretion, and to take leave of you with the assurance that it

shall not occur again."

Thereupon I bowed and quitted the box. I had scarcely closed the door

when I heard a third peal of laughter. It would not have been well for

anybody who had elbowed me at that moment.

I returned to my seat. The signal for raising the curtain was given.

Ernest came back to his place beside me.

"What a way you behaved!" he said, as he sat down. "They will think you

are mad."