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.