My infanta opened daintily her little bag, took from it a roll and some bonbons, which she began to eat in the most graceful manner imaginable, but having breakfasted before leaving Mantes, I was dying of hunger; I suppose I must have looked covetously at her provisions, for she began to laugh and offered me half of her pittance, which I accepted.  In the division, I don’t know how it happened, but my hand touched hers—­she drew it quickly away, and bestowed upon me a look of such royal disdain that I said to myself—­This young girl is destined for the dramatic profession,—­she plays the Marguerites and the Clytemnestras in the provinces until she possesses embonpoint enough to appear at Porte Saint Martin or the Odeon.  This vampire is her dresser—­everything was clear.

I promised you a paragraph upon her eyes and hair; her eyes were a changeable gray, sometimes blue, sometimes green, according to the expression and the light; her chestnut locks were separated in two glossy braids, half satin, half velvet—­many a great lady would have paid high for such hair.

The shower over, a wild resolution was unanimously taken to set out on foot for Pont de l’Arche, notwithstanding the mud and the puddles.

Having entered into the good graces of the infanta by speech full of wisdom and gesture carefully guarded, we set out together, the old woman following a few steps behind, and the marvellous little boot arrived at its destination without being soiled the least in the world—­grisettes are perfect partridges—­the house of Madame Taverneau, the post-mistress, where my incognita stopped.

You are a prince of very little penetration, dear Roger, if you have not divined that you will receive a letter from me every day, and even two, if I have to send empty envelopes or recopy the Complete Letter Writer.  To whom will I not write?  No minister of state will ever have so extended a correspondence.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN.

VII.

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN to MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Hotel of the Prefecture, Grenoble (Isere).

PONT DE L’ARCHE, May 29th 18—.

Valentine, this time I rebel, and question your infallibility.

It is useless for you to say to me, “You do not love him.”  I tell you I do love him, and intend to marry him.  Nevertheless you excite my admiration in pronouncing against me this very well-turned sentence.  “Genuine and fervid love is not so ingenuous.  When you love deeply, you respect the object of your devotion and are fearful of giving offence by daring to test him.

“When you love sincerely you are not so venturesome.  It is so necessary for you to trust him, that you treasure up your faith and risk it not in suspicious trifling.

“Real love is timid, it would rather err than suspect, it buries doubts instead of nursing them, and very wisely, for love cannot survive faith.”