e."

"Oh, monsieur," she retorted, "never trust provincial women."

"And why not?" said Lousteau.

Madame de la Baudraye was wily enough--an innocent form of cunning, to
be sure--to show the two Parisians, one of whom she would choose to be
her conquerer, the snare into which he would fall, reflecting that she
would have the upper hand at the moment when he should cease to see it.

"When you first come," said she, "you laugh at us. Then when you have
forgotten the impression of Paris brilliancy, and see us in our own
sphere, you pay court to us, if only as a pastime. And you, who are
famous for your past passions, will be the object of attentions which
will flatter you. Then take care!" cried Dinah, with a coquettish
gesture, raising herself above provincial absurdities and Lousteau's
irony by her own sarcastic speech. "When a poor little country-bred
woman has an eccentric passion for some superior man, some Parisian
who has wandered into the provinces, it is to her something more than a
sentiment; she makes it her occupation and part of all her life. There
is nothing more dangerous than the attachment of such a woman; she
compares, she studies, she reflects, she dreams; and she will not give
up her dream, she thinks still of the man she loves when he has ceased
to think of her.

"Now one of the catastrophes that weigh most heavily on a woman in the
provinces is that abrupt termination of her passion which is so often
seen in England. In the country, a life under minute observation as keen
as an Indian's compels a woman either to keep on the rails or to start
aside like a steam engine wrecked by an obstacle. The strategies of
love, the coquetting which form half the composition of a Parisian
woman, are utterly unknown here."

"That is true," said Lousteau. "There is in a country-bred woman's heart
a store of surprises, as in some toys."

"Dear me!" Dinah went on, "a woman will have spoken to you three times
in the course of a winter, and without your knowing it, you will be
lodged in her heart. Then comes a picnic, an excursion, what not, and
all is said--or, if you prefer it, all is done! This conduct, which
seems odd to unobserving persons, is really very natural. A poet, such
as you are, or a philosopher, an observer, like Doctor Bianchon, instead
of vilifying the provincial woman and believing her depraved, would be
able to guess the wonderful unrevealed poetry, every chapter, in short,
of the sweet romance