'Claude Larcher often tells me that I shall never be happier at any period of my literary career. He maintains that there are four stages in a writer's life--when he is unknown, when he is applauded by those who wish to spite his elders, when he is maligned because he is successful, and when he is forgiven because he is forgotten. I am so sorry you don't know him better--I am sure you would like him. Literature is his religion!'
'He is rather too artless, after all,' thought Suzanne, but she was too interested in the result of this interview to give way to her impatience. She seized upon the words René had just uttered and interrupted his uncalled-for praises of Claude by saying, 'His religion! It is true, that is just like you writers. I have a friend who is undergoing the ordeal, and she is always telling me that a woman ought to be careful not to bestow her affections upon an artist. He will never love her as much as he loves his art.'
She repeated these supposititious words of her imaginary friend with a look of pain upon her face; her cherry lips were parted by a half-stifled sigh that hinted at heartrending confidences and a presentiment of similar experiences in store for herself.
'Why, it is you who are sad,' observed René, struck by the sudden change in her pretty face.
'Now for it!' she thought, and then replied, 'That doesn't matter. What difference can it make to you whether I am sad or not?'
'Do you think that I take no interest in you?' rejoined René.
'A little, perhaps,' she replied, shrugging her shoulders; 'but when you have left me will you think of me otherwise than as of some sympathetic woman whom you have casually met and speedily forgotten?'
She had never looked so lovely in René's eyes as when she uttered these words, which went as far as she dared go without jeopardising her game. Her gloved hand rested on the green velvet sofa quite close to the poet, and he was bold enough to take it. She did not draw it back. Her eyes seemed fixed upon some vision far away, and it was doubtful whether she had even noticed René's daring action. There are women who have a delightful way of paying no heed to the familiarities which some people _will_ take with them. René pressed her dainty hand, and, as she did not resent it, he began to speak in a voice trembling with emotion: