Robert's response certainly foreshadows his ultimate entanglement with Edna. Although he has established a pattern of engaging in rhetoric instead of action — the mock romances with married women, the unfulfilled intention to seek his fortune in Mexico — evidently he does wish to be taken seriously, to receive credit as a passionate lover and successful entrepreneur based on his intentions rather than his acts. "I hope she has discernment enough to find in me something besides the blaguer," he says, revealing the attitude that Edna could only do herself credit to find worth in him and perceive him as a man to be reckoned with. Yet Madame Ratignolle immediately and candidly identifies the truth of the situation: "You speak with about as little reflection as . . . one of those children down there." Robert is still emotionally immature, which probably motivates his hollow romantic gestures towards women with whom he never expects to pursue a serious adult relationship.
Note that Robert offers as proof of his own virtue a comparison to Alcée Arobin, the gentleman with whom Edna will become sexually involved later.
Although he initially resents Madame Ratignolle's suggestion, betraying his own illusions about the depth of his character, by the time they reach her cottage, he has regained enough composure to admit that Madame Ratignolle should have instead "warned me against taking myself seriously. Your advice might then have . . . given me subject for some reflection." However, if Madame Ratignolle's comment does cause him to engage in reflection, it is more likely speculation about the situation's possibilities, as is implied by how easily he is distracted from Montel's letter by the suggestion that Edna may be approaching. Madame Ratignolle's well-meant advice underlies Robert and Edna's later emotional entanglement, poised as both are, like children, to indulge in the high drama of thwarted romance.
