es, Marquis, I
will add a few words to this letter. I have not read it, but I suspect
that it refers to me. I wish, however, to write you with my own hand
that we shall be alone here all day. I wish to tell you that I love
you moderately well at present, but that I have the greatest desire
in the world not to love you at all. However, if you deem it advisable
to come and trouble our little party, it gives me pleasure to warn you
that your heart will be exposed to the greatest danger. I am told that
I am handsomer to-day than you have ever found me to be, and I never
felt more in the humor to treat you badly.

XXXIV

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

All this, Marquis, begins to pass the bounds of pleasantry. Explain
yourself, I pray you. Did you pretend to speak seriously in your
letter, in making it understood that I was acting on this occasion
through jealousy, and that I was trying to separate you and the
Countess to profit by it myself?

You are either the wickedest of men or the most adroit; the wickedest
if you ever could suspect me guilty of such baseness; the most adroit,
if you have thrown out that idea to make my friend suspect me. I see
very clearly in all this, that the alternative is equally injurious to
me, since the Countess has taken the matter to heart. I find that my
relations with her are very embarrassing. Criminal that you are, how
well you know your ascendency over her heart! You could not better
attack her than by the appearance of indifference you affect. Not
deign to answer my last letter, not come to the rendezvous given you,
remain away from us three days, and after all that, to write us the
coldest letter possible, oh, I confess it frankly, that is to act like
a perfect man; that is what I call a master stroke, and the most
complete success has responded to your hope. The Countess has not
been able to stand against so much coolness. The fear that this
indifference may become real has caused her a mortal anxiety.

Great Heavens! What is the most reasonable woman when love has turned
her head? Why were you not the witness of the reproaches I have just
heard? How is that? To hear the Countess to-day, gave me an injurious
opinion of her virtue, a false idea of your pretensions, and I
considered your designs criminal because you took so much pleasure in
punishing her.

I am hard, unjust, cruel, I can not remember all the epithets with
which I was covered. What outbursts! Oh, I p