“I am still less surprised, Madame,” said Monsieur de la Sabliere, “at the novelty of your project, than at the skill with which you have succeeded in rendering such a singular idea plausible.  Permit me to say, that it is not possible to go astray with more spirit.  Have you experimented with everybody according to your system?  Men go a long way around to avoid the beaten track, but they all fall over the same obstacles.  To make use of the privilege you granted me to tell you plainly my thought, believe me, Countess, that the only way for you to preserve your peace of mind is to resume openly your position as a reasonable woman.  There is nothing to be gained by compounding with virtue.”

When I heard the conversation taking that complexion, I knew it would soon finish, and I therefore promptly withdrew, and could not think of anything but satisfying your curiosity.  I am tired of writing.  In two days I shall return to Paris.

XXXII

The Advantages of a Knowledge of the Heart

Well, Marquis, here I am back again, but the news I bring you may not be altogether to your liking.  You have never had so fine an occasion to charge women with caprice.  I wrote you the last time to tell you that you were loved, to-day I write just the contrary.

A strange resolution has been taken against you; tremble, ’tis a thing settled; the Countess purposes loving you at her ease, and without its costing her any disturbance of her peace of mind.  She has seen the consequences of a passion similar to yours, and she can not face it without dismay.  She intends, therefore, to arrest its progress.  Do not let the proofs she has given you reassure you.  You men imagine that as soon as a woman has confessed her love she can never more break her chains; undeceive yourself.  The Countess is much more reasonable on your account than I thought, and I do not hide from you the fact that a portion of her firmness is due to my advice.  You need not rely any more on my letters, and you do not require any help from them to understand women.

I sometimes regret that I have furnished you weapons against my sex, without them would you ever have been able to touch the heart of the Countess?  I must avow that I have judged women with too much rigor, and you now see me ready to make them a reparation.  I know it now, there are more stable and essentially virtuous women than I had thought.

What a stock of reason!  What a combination of all the estimable qualities in our friend!  No, Marquis, I could no longer withhold from her the sentiment of my most tender esteem, and without consulting your interests, I have united with her against you.  You will murmur at this, but the confidence she has given me, does it not demand this return on my part?  I will not hide from you any of my wickedness; I have carried malice to the point of instructing her in the advantages you might draw from everything I have written you about women.