receive me! What have I done, my dear Marguerite?"

"My dear friend, you have done nothing. I am ill; I must go to bed, so
you will be good enough to go. It is sickening not to be able to return
at night without your making your appearance five minutes afterward.
What is it you want? For me to be your mistress? Well, I have already
told you a hundred times, No; you simply worry me, and you might as well
go somewhere else. I repeat to you to-day, for the last time, I don't
want to have anything to do with you; that's settled. Good-bye. Here's
Nanine coming in; she can light you to the door. Good-night."

Without adding another word, or listening to what the young man
stammered out, Marguerite returned to the room and slammed the door.
Nanine entered a moment after.

"Now understand," said Marguerite, "you are always to say to that idiot
that I am not in, or that I will not see him. I am tired out with seeing
people who always want the same thing; who pay me for it, and then think
they are quit of me. If those who are going to go in for our hateful
business only knew what it really was they would sooner be chambermaids.
But no, vanity, the desire of having dresses and carriages and diamonds
carries us away; one believes what one hears, for here, as elsewhere,
there is such a thing as belief, and one uses up one's heart, one's
body, one's beauty, little by little; one is feared like a beast of
prey, scorned like a pariah, surrounded by people who always take more
than they give; and one fine day one dies like a dog in a ditch, after
having ruined others and ruined one's self."

"Come, come, madame, be calm," said Nanine; "your nerves are a bit upset
to-night."

"This dress worries me," continued Marguerite, unhooking her bodice;
"give me a dressing-gown. Well, and Prudence?"

"She has not come yet, but I will send her to you, madame, the moment
she comes."

"There's one, now," Marguerite went on, as she took off her dress and
put on a white dressing-gown, "there's one who knows very well how to
find me when she is in want of me, and yet she can't do me a service
decently. She knows I am waiting for an answer. She knows how anxious I
am, and I am sure she is going about on her own account, without giving
a thought to me."

"Perhaps she had to wait."

"Let us have some punch."

"It will do you no good, madame," said Nanine.

"So much the better. Bring some fruit, too, and a pate or a wing of
chicken; something