ve us."

"And," said the marquise, "if we were not both over thirty-six years of
age, perhaps we would not tell them to each other."

"Yes; when women are young they have so many stupid conceits," replied
the princess. "We are like those poor young men who play with a
toothpick to pretend they have dined."

"Well, at any rate, here we are!" said Madame d'Espard, with coquettish
grace, and a charming gesture of well-informed innocence; "and, it seems
to me, sufficiently alive to think of taking our revenge."

"When you told me, the other day, that Beatrix had gone off with Conti,
I thought of it all night long," said the princess, after a pause. "I
suppose there was happiness in sacrificing her position, her future, and
renouncing society forever."

"She was a little fool," said Madame d'Espard, gravely. "Mademoiselle
des Touches was delighted to get rid of Conti. Beatrix never perceived
how that surrender, made by a superior woman who never for a moment
defended her claims, proved Conti's nothingness."

"Then you think she will be unhappy?"

"She is so now," replied Madame d'Espard. "Why did she leave her
husband? What an acknowledgment of weakness!"

"Then you think that Madame de Rochefide was not influenced by the
desire to enjoy a true love in peace?" asked the princess.

"No; she was simply imitating Madame de Beausant and Madame de Langeais,
who, be it said, between you and me, would have been, in a less vulgar
period than ours, the La Villiere, the Diane de Poitiers, the Gabrielle
d'Estrees of history."

"Less the king, my dear. Ah! I wish I could evoke the shades of those
women, and ask them--"

"But," said the marquise, interrupting the princess, "why ask the dead?
We know living women who have been happy. I have talked on this very
subject a score of times with Madame de Montcornet since she married
that little Emile Blondet, who makes her the happiest woman in the
world; not an infidelity, not a thought that turns aside from her; they
are as happy as they were the first day. These long attachments, like
that of Rastignac and Madame de Nucingen, and your cousin, Madame de
Camps, for her Octave, have a secret, and that secret you and I don't
know, my dear. The world has paid us the extreme compliment of thinking
we are two rakes worthy of the court of the regent; whereas we are, in
truth, as innocent as a couple of school-girls."

"I should like that sort of innocence," cried the princess, laughin