steau was not much afraid of Madame Schontz, who really loved him for
himself, but he had supplanted a friend in the heart of a Marquise. This
Marquise, a lady nowise coy, sometimes dropped in unexpectedly at his
rooms in the evening, arriving veiled in a hackney coach; and she, as a
literary woman, allowed herself to hunt through all his drawers.

A week later, Lousteau, who hardly remembered Dinah, was startled by
another budget from Sancerre--eight leaves, sixteen pages! He heard a
woman's step; he thought it announced a search from the Marquise, and
tossed these rapturous and entrancing proofs of affections into the
fire--unread!

"A woman's letter!" exclaimed Madame Schontz, as she came in. "The
paper, the wax, are scented--"

"Here you are, sir," said a porter from the coach office, setting down
two huge hampers in the ante-room. "Carriage paid. Please to sign my
book."

"Carriage paid!" cried Madame Schontz. "It must have come from
Sancerre."

"Yes, madame," said the porter.

"Your Tenth Muse is a remarkably intelligent woman," said the courtesan,
opening one of the hampers, while Lousteau was writing his name. "I like
a Muse who understands housekeeping, and who can make game pies as well
as blots. And, oh! what beautiful flowers!" she went on, opening the
second hamper. "Why, you could get none finer in Paris!--And here, and
here! A hare, partridges, half a roebuck!--We will ask your friends
and have a famous dinner, for Athalie has a special talent for dressing
venison."

Lousteau wrote to Dinah; but instead of writing from the heart, he
was clever. The letter was all the more insidious; it was like one of
Mirabeau's letters to Sophie. The style of a true lover is transparent.
It is a clear stream which allows the bottom of the heart to be seen
between two banks, bright with the trifles of existence, and covered
with the flowers of the soul that blossom afresh every day, full of
intoxicating beauty--but only for two beings. As soon as a love letter
has any charm for a third reader, it is beyond doubt the product of the
head, not of the heart. But a woman will always be beguiled; she always
believes herself to be the determining cause of this flow of wit.

By the end of December Lousteau had ceased to read Dinah's letters; they
lay in a heap in a drawer of his chest that was never locked, under his
shirts, which they scented.

Then one of those chances came to Lousteau which such bohemians ought
to