k it so!
The love of noble youth--and you have called me that--would honor
a queen. Therefore, to-morrow let us walk as lovers, hand in hand,
among the rocks and beside the sea; your step upon the sands of my
old Brittany will bless them anew to me! Give me this day of
happiness; and that passing alms, unremembered, alas! by you, will
be eternal riches to your

Calyste.

The baroness let fall the letter, without reading all of it. She knelt
upon a chair, and made a mental prayer to God to save her Calyste's
reason, to put his madness, his error far away from him; to lead him
from the path in which she now beheld him.

"What are you doing, mother?" said Calyste, entering the room.

"I am praying to God for you," she answered, simply, turning her tearful
eyes upon him. "I have committed the sin of reading that letter. My
Calyste is mad!"

"A sweet madness!" said the young man, kissing her.

"I wish I could see that woman," she sighed.

"Mamma," said Calyste, "we shall take a boat to-morrow and cross to
Croisic. If you are on the jetty you can see her."

So saying, he sealed his letter and departed for Les Touches.

That which, above all, terrified the baroness was to see a sentiment
attaining, by the force of its own instinct, to the clear-sightedness
of practised experience. Calyste's letter to Beatrix was such as
the Chevalier du Halga, with his knowledge of the world, might have
dictated.

XIII. DUEL BETWEEN WOMEN

Perhaps one of the greatest enjoyments that small minds or inferior
minds can obtain is that of deceiving a great soul, and laying
snares for it. Beatrix knew herself far beneath Camille Maupin. This
inferiority lay not only in the collection of mental and moral qualities
which we call _talent_, but in the things of the heart called _passion_.

At the moment when Calyste was hurrying to Les Touches with the
impetuosity of a first love borne on the wings of hope, the marquise was
feeling a keen delight in knowing herself the object of the first love
of so charming a young man. She did not go so far as to wish herself
a sharer in the sentiment, but she thought it heroism on her part
to repress the _capriccio_, as the Italians say. She thought she was
equalling Camille's devotion, and told herself, moreover, that she was
sacrificing herself to her friend. The vanities peculiar to Frenchwomen,
which constitute the celebrated coquetry of which she was so signal
an instance, wer