. My light, mocking words had done
their work. He bowed to me and I replied with a slight inclination of
the head.

The Duc d'Angouleme has bought Macumer's horse. My slave understood that
he was deserting the role of simplicity by attracting the notice of the
crowd. A man ought to be remarked for what he is, not for his horse, or
anything else belonging to him. To have too beautiful a horse seems to
me a piece of bad taste, just as much as wearing a huge diamond pin. I
was delighted at being able to find fault with him. Perhaps there may
have been a touch of vanity in what he did, very excusable in a poor
exile, and I like to see this childishness.

Oh! my dear old preacher, do my love affairs amuse you as much as
your dismal philosophy gives me the creeps? Dear Philip the Second in
petticoats, are you comfortable in my barouche? Do you see those velvet
eyes, humble, yet so eloquent, and glorying in their servitude, which
flash on me as some one goes by? He is a hero, Renee, and he wears my
livery, and always a red camellia in his buttonhole, while I have always
a white one in my hand.

How clear everything becomes in the light of love! How well I know my
Paris now! It is all transfused with meaning. And love here is lovelier,
grander, more bewitching than elsewhere.

I am convinced now that I could never flirt with a fool or make any
impression on him. It is only men of real distinction who can enter into
our feelings and feel our influence. Oh! my poor friend, forgive me. I
forgot our l'Estorade. But didn't you tell me you were going to make a
genius of him? I know what that means. You will dry nurse him till some
day he is able to understand you.

Good-bye. I am a little off my head, and must stop.

XVIII. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU April.

My angel--or ought I not rather to say my imp of evil?--you have,
without meaning it, grieved me sorely. I would say wounded were we not
one soul. And yet it is possible to wound oneself.

How plain it is that you have never realized the force of the word
_indissoluble_ as applied to the contract binding man and woman! I
have no wish to controvert what has been laid down by philosophers or
legislators--they are quite capable of doing this for themselves--but,
dear one, in making marriage irrevocable and imposing on it a relentless
formula, which admits of no exceptions, they have rendered each union
a thing as distinct as one individual is from anothe