"

"Did you know that I was here?" I asked in utter amazement.

"Oh, yes, I received word just as you left Paris. Have you played your
part well? Did not the husband think your visit ridiculous? Was he put
out? When are you going to take leave? You had better go, I have made
every provision for you. I have brought you a good carriage. It is at
your service. This is the way I requite you, my dear friend. You may
rely on me in the future, for a man is grateful for such services as
yours."

These last words gave me the key to the whole mystery, and I saw how I
stood.

"But why should you have come so soon?" I asked him; "it would have been
more prudent to have waited a few days."

"I foresaw that; and it is only chance that has brought me here. I am
supposed to be on my way back from a neighboring country house. But has
not Madame de T----- taken you into her secret? I am surprised at her
want of confidence, after all you have done for us."

"My dear friend," I replied, "she doubtless had her reasons. Perhaps I
did not play my part very well."

"Has everything been very pleasant? Tell me the particulars; come, tell
me."

"Now wait a moment. I did not know that this was to be a comedy; and
although Madame de T----- gave me a part in the play--"

"It wasn't a very nice one."

"Do not worry yourself; there are no bad parts for good actors."

"I understand, you acquitted yourself well."

"Admirably."

"And Madame de T-----?"

"Is adorable."

"To think of being able to win such a woman!" said he, stopping short in
our walk, and looking triumphantly at me. "Oh, what pains I have taken
with her! And I have at last brought her to a point where she is perhaps
the only woman in Paris on whose fidelity a man may infallibly count!"

"You have succeeded--?"

"Yes; in that lies my special talent. Her inconstancy was mere
frivolity, unrestrained imagination. It was necessary to change that
disposition of hers, but you have no idea of her attachment to me. But
really, is she not charming?"

"I quite agree with you."

"And yet _entre nous_ I recognize one fault in her. Nature in giving her
everything, has denied her that flame divine which puts the crown on all
other endowments; while she rouses in others the ardor of passion, she
feels none herself, she is a thing of marble."

"I am compelled to believe you, for I have had no opportunity of
judging, but do you think that you know that woman as well as if you
we