But, though she was careful to keep her face a blank, her mind was busy.
Surely not since the gay women of Barras's court laughed at the megalomaniac ravings of a noisy, badly dressed, dirty young lieutenant named Buonaparte, had there been a vanity so candid, so voluble, so obstreperous.

Nor did he talk of himself in a detached way, as if he were relating the performances and predicting the glory of a human being who happened to have the same name as himself.

No, he thrust upon her in every sentence that he, he himself and none other, had said and done all these splendid startling things, would do more, and more splendid.

She listened, astounded; she wondered why she did not burst out laughing in his very face, why, on the contrary, she seemed to accept to a surprising extent his own estimate of himself.
"He's a fool," thought she, "one of the most tedious fools I ever met.
But I was right; he's evidently very much of a somebody.

However does he get time to DO anything, when he's so busy admiring himself?
How does he ever contrive to take his mind off himself long enough to think of anything else ?" Nearly an hour later Arkwright came for him, cut him off in the middle of an enthusiastic description of how he had enchained and enthralled a vast audience in the biggest hall in St.Paul.