er."

"What did she say about it?"

"She said: 'My dear Prudence, your protege is not polite; one thinks
such letters, one does not write them."'

"In what tone did she say that?"

"Laughingly," and she added: "He has had supper with me twice, and hasn't
even called."

That, then, was the effect produced by my letter and my jealousy. I was
cruelly humiliated in the vanity of my affection.

"What did she do last night?"

"She went to the opera."

"I know. And afterward?"

"She had supper at home."

"Alone?"

"With the Comte de G., I believe."

So my breaking with her had not changed one of her habits. It is for
such reasons as this that certain people say to you: Don't have anything
more to do with the woman; she cares nothing about you.

"Well, I am very glad to find that Marguerite does not put herself out
for me," I said with a forced smile.

"She has very good reason not to. You have done what you were bound to
do. You have been more reasonable than she, for she was really in love
with you; she did nothing but talk of you. I don't know what she would
not have been capable of doing."

"Why hasn't she answered me, if she was in love with me?"

"Because she realizes she was mistaken in letting herself love you.
Women sometimes allow you to be unfaithful to their love; they never
allow you to wound their self-esteem; and one always wounds the
self-esteem of a woman when, two days after one has become her lover,
one leaves her, no matter for what reason. I know Marguerite; she would
die sooner than reply."

"What can I do, then?"

"Nothing. She will forget you, you will forget her, and neither will
have any reproach to make against the other."

"But if I write and ask her forgiveness?"

"Don't do that, for she would forgive you."

I could have flung my arms round Prudence's neck.

A quarter of an hour later I was once more in my own quarters, and I
wrote to Marguerite:

"Some one, who repents of a letter that he wrote yesterday and who will
leave Paris to-morrow if you do not forgive him, wishes to know at what
hour he might lay his repentance at your feet.

"When can he find you alone? for, you know, confessions must be made
without witnesses."

I folded this kind of madrigal in prose, and sent it by Joseph, who
handed it to Marguerite herself; she replied that she would send the
answer later.

I only went out to have a hasty dinner, and at eleven in the evening no
reply had come. I m