or nine years stood
out against the besiegers of Sancerre smiled on Lousteau.

With this notion in his head, he was the first to go down and into the
garden, hoping to meet his hostess. And this chance fell out all the
more easily because Madame de la Baudraye on her part wished to converse
with her critic. Half such chances are planned.

"You were out shooting yesterday, monsieur," said Madame de la Baudraye.
"This morning I am rather puzzled as to how to find you any new
amusement; unless you would like to come to La Baudraye, where you may
study more of our provincial life than you can see here, for you have
made but one mouthful of my absurdities. However, the saying about the
handsomest girl in the world is not less true of the poor provincial
woman!"

"That little simpleton Gatien has, I suppose, related to you a speech I
made simply to make him confess that he adored you," said Etienne.
"Your silence, during dinner the day before yesterday and throughout the
evening, was enough to betray one of those indiscretions which we never
commit in Paris.--What can I say? I do not flatter myself that you
will understand me. In fact, I laid a plot for the telling of all those
stories yesterday solely to see whether I could rouse you and Monsieur
de Clagny to a pang of remorse.--Oh! be quite easy; your innocence is
fully proved.

"If you had the slightest fancy for that estimable magistrate, you would
have lost all your value in my eyes.--I love perfection.

"You do not, you cannot love that cold, dried-up, taciturn little
usurer on wine casks and land, who would leave any man in the lurch for
twenty-five centimes on a renewal. Oh, I have fully recognized Monsieur
de la Baudraye's similarity to a Parisian bill-discounter; their nature
is identical.--At eight-and-twenty, handsome, well conducted, and
childless--I assure you, madame, I never saw the problem of virtue more
admirably expressed.--The author of _Paquita la Sevillane_ must have
dreamed many dreams!

"I can speak of such things without the hypocritical gloss lent them by
young men, for I am old before my time. I have no illusions left. Can a
man have any illusions in the trade I follow?"

By opening the game in this tone, Lousteau cut out all excursions in the
_Pays de Tendre_, where genuine passion beats the bush so long; he went
straight to the point and placed himself in a position to force the
offer of what women often make a man pray for, for years; wit