petto_ to take the measure, as it were, of each
other's heart. The journalist took a tone of refined corruption to prove
that love obeys no law, that the character of the lovers gives infinite
variety to its incidents, that the circumstances of social life add to
the multiplicity of its manifestations, that in love all is possible and
true, and that any given woman, after resisting every temptation and the
seductions of the most passionate lover, may be carried off her feet in
the course of a few hours by a fancy, an internal whirlwind of which God
alone would ever know the secret!

"Why," said he, "is not that the key to all the adventures we have
talked over these three days past?"

For these three days, indeed, Dinah's lively imagination had been
full of the most insidious romances, and the conversation of the two
Parisians had affected the woman as the most mischievous reading might
have done. Lousteau watched the effects of this clever manoeuvre, to
seize the moment when his prey, whose readiness to be caught was hidden
under the abstraction caused by irresolution, should be quite dizzy.

Dinah wished to show La Baudraye to her two visitors, and the farce was
duly played out of remembering the papers left by Bianchon in his room
at Anzy. Gatien flew off at a gallop to obey his sovereign; Madame
Piedefer went to do some shopping in Sancerre; and Dinah went on to
Cosne alone with the two friends. Lousteau took his seat by the lady,
Bianchon riding backwards. The two friends talked affectionately
and with deep compassion for the fate of this choice nature so ill
understood and in the midst of such vulgar surroundings. Bianchon
served Lousteau well by making fun of the Public Prosecutor, of Monsieur
Gravier, and of Gatien; there was a tone of such genuine contempt in
his remarks, that Madame de la Baudraye dared not take the part of her
adorers.

"I perfectly understand the position you have maintained," said the
doctor as they crossed the Loire. "You were inaccessible excepting to
that brain-love which often leads to heart-love; and not one of those
men, it is very certain, is capable of disguising what, at an early
stage of life, is disgusting to the senses in the eyes of a refined
woman. To you, now, love is indispensable."

"Indispensable!" cried Dinah, looking curiously at the doctor. "Do you
mean that you prescribe love to me?"

"If you go on living as you live now, in three years you will be
hideous," re