r
great admirers, said, she knew how to take a second edition of revenge,
laying the two-edged blade of a sarcasm between the pairs in these
"morganatic" unions. Her mocking disdain contributed not a little to
increase her reputation as an extremely clever woman and a person to
be feared. Her character for virtue was consolidated while she amused
herself with other people's secrets, and kept her own to herself. Yet,
after two months of assiduities, she saw with a vague dread in the
depths of her soul that M. de Montriveau understood nothing of the
subtleties of flirtation after the manner of the Faubourg Saint-Germain;
he was taking a Parisienne's coquetry in earnest.

"You will not tame _him_, dear Duchess," the old Vidame de Pamiers had
said. "'Tis a first cousin to the eagle; he will carry you off to his
eyrie if you do not take care."

Then Mme de Langeais felt afraid. The shrewd old noble's words sounded
like a prophecy. The next day she tried to turn love to hate. She was
harsh, exacting, irritable, unbearable; Montriveau disarmed her with
angelic sweetness. She so little knew the great generosity of a large
nature, that the kindly jests with which her first complaints were met
went to her heart. She sought a quarrel, and found proofs of affection.
She persisted.

"When a man idolizes you, how can he have vexed you?" asked Armand.

"You do not vex me," she answered, suddenly grown gentle and submissive.
"But why do you wish to compromise me? For me you ought to be nothing
but a _friend_. Do you not know it? I wish I could see that you had the
instincts, the delicacy of real friendship, so that I might lose neither
your respect nor the pleasure that your presence gives me."

"Nothing but your _friend_!" he cried out. The terrible word sent an
electric shock through his brain. "On the faith of these happy hours
that you grant me, I sleep and wake in your heart. And now today, for no
reason, you are pleased to destroy all the secret hopes by which I live.
You have required promises of such constancy in me, you have said so
much of your horror of women made up of nothing but caprice; and now do
you wish me to understand that, like other women here in Paris, you have
passions, and know nothing of love? If so, why did you ask my life of
me? why did you accept it?"

"I was wrong, my friend. Oh, it is wrong of a woman to yield to such
intoxication when she must not and cannot make any return."

"I understand. You