The curtain went up. I have often seen Marguerite at the theatre. I
never saw her pay the slightest attention to what was being acted. As
for me, the performance interested me equally little, and I paid no
attention to anything but her, though doing my utmost to keep her from
noticing it.

Presently I saw her glancing across at the person who was in the
opposite box; on looking, I saw a woman with whom I was quite familiar.
She had once been a kept woman, and had tried to go on the stage, had
failed, and, relying on her acquaintance with fashionable people in
Paris, had gone into business and taken a milliner's shop. I saw in her
a means of meeting with Marguerite, and profited by a moment in which
she looked my way to wave my hand to her. As I expected, she beckoned to
me to come to her box.

Prudence Duvernoy (that was the milliner's auspicious name) was one of
those fat women of forty with whom one requires very little diplomacy
to make them understand what one wants to know, especially when what one
wants to know is as simple as what I had to ask of her.

I took advantage of a moment when she was smiling across at Marguerite
to ask her, "Whom are you looking at?"

"Marguerite Gautier."

"You know her?"

"Yes, I am her milliner, and she is a neighbour of mine."