at him, but nevertheless it pleased her to make him forget how
time went.

The length of a first visit is frequently a compliment, but Armand was
innocent of any such intent. The famous explorer spent an hour in chat
on all sorts of subjects, said nothing that he meant to say, and was
feeling that he was only an instrument on whom this woman played, when
she rose, sat upright, drew the scarf from her hair, and wrapped it
about her throat, leant her elbow on the cushions, did him the honour
of a complete cure, and rang for lights. The most graceful movement
succeeded to complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom
she had just extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her deeply,
and said:

"You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that you
have never loved. It is a man's great pretension with us. And we always
believe it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not know what to expect
from it for ourselves? Where is the man that has found but a single
opportunity of losing his heart? But you love to deceive us, and we
submit to be deceived, poor foolish creatures that we are; for your
hypocrisy is, after all, a homage paid to the superiority of our
sentiments, which are all purity."

The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the novice
in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep, while the
Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular heaven.

"Confound it!" thought Armand de Montriveau, "how am I to tell this wild
thing that I love her?"

He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess had
a score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion in this
unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an interest in her
empty life. So she prepared with no little dexterity to raise a certain
number of redoubts for him to carry by storm before he should gain an
entrance into her heart. Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after
another; he should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect
teased by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in
spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its mischievous
tormentor. And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible happiness to see
that this strong man had told her the truth. Armand had never loved, as
he had said. He was about to go, in a bad humour with himself, and still
more out of humour with her; but it delighted her to see a sullenness
that she could