ine were necessary to enable one to get
through life with decency and pleasure, and while I untangled the silk
I should have time to reflect upon how comically ridiculous I had
been to throw down and trample upon an inanimate thing that only my
personal stupidity had caused to annoy me."

Antony looked at me a long time. He sighed a short, quick sigh, and
then said, gayly:

"You must certainly write a book for the training of the young. But
what did your grandmother say of such things as strong passions--the
mad love of one person for another, for instance? Could they be ruled
by maxims?"

"She did not discuss those things with me. But she did say that in
life, now and then, there came a _coup de foudre_, which sometimes was
its glory and sometimes not; that this was nature, and there was no
use going absolutely contrary to nature; but that a disciplined person
was less likely to commit a _betise_, or to mistake a passing light
for the _coup de foudre_, than one who was accustomed to give way to
every emotion, as a trained soldier is better able to stand fire than
the raw recruit from the fields."

"And yet the trained soldier goes under sometimes."

"In that case, she said, there were only two courses--either to finish
the matter and go out altogether, or to get up again and fight better
next time."

Antony looked down at me. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and it
seemed as if he were observing something in my very soul. Then he
said, with a whimsical smile, "Comtesse, tell me. And did she consider
there were any great sins?"

"Oh yes. To break one's word, or in any way degrade one's race. But
she said sins were not so much sins in themselves as in their _facon
de faire_. One must remain a gentlewoman--or man--always, even in
moments of the greatest _tourbillons_. 'We are all of flesh and
blood,' she said, 'but in the same situation the _fille de chambre_
conducts herself differently to the _femme de qualite_.' What a
serious impression I am giving you of grandmamma, though! She was
a gay person, full of pleasant thoughts."

"She permitted pleasures, then?"

"But, of course, all pleasures that did not really injure other
people. She said priests and custom and convention had robbed the
world of much joy."

"She was quite right."

"She liked people to have fine perceptions. To be able to 'see with
the eye-lashes' was one of her expressions, and, I assure you, nothing
escaped her. It was very fatiguing