Certainly Diane did not look to be more than twenty-five years old.  Four years of solitude and repose had restored the freshness of her complexion.  Besides, there are moments when the desire to please gives an increase of beauty to women.  The will is not without influence on the variations of the face.  If violent emotions have the power to yellow the white tones of persons of bilious and melancholy temperament, and to green lymphatic faces, shall we not grant to desire, hope, and joy, the faculty of clearing the skin, giving brilliancy to the eye, and brightening the glow of beauty with a light as jocund as that of a lovely morning?  The celebrated faintness of the princess had taken on a ripeness which now made her seem more august.  At this moment of her life, impressed by her many vicissitudes and by serious reflections, her noble, dreamy brow harmonized delightfully with the slow, majestic glance of her blue eyes.  It was impossible for the ablest physiognomist to imagine calculation or self-will beneath that unspeakable delicacy of feature.  There were faces of women which deceive knowledge, and mislead observation by their calmness and delicacy; it is necessary to examine such faces when passions speak, and that is difficult, or after they have spoken, which is no longer of any use, for then the woman is old and has ceased to dissimulate.

The princess is one of those impenetrable women; she can make herself what she pleases to be:  playful, childlike, distractingly innocent; or reflective, serious, and profound enough to excite anxiety.  She came to Madame d’Espard’s dinner with the intention of being a gentle, simple woman, to whom life was known only through its deceptions:  a woman full of soul, and calumniated, but resigned,—­in short, a wounded angel.

She arrived early, so as to pose on a sofa near the fire beside Madame d’Espard, as she wished to be first seen:  that is, in one of those attitudes in which science is concealed beneath an exquisite naturalness; a studied attitude, putting in relief the beautiful serpentine outline which, starting from the foot, rises gracefully to the hip, and continues with adorable curves to the shoulder, presenting, in fact, a profile of the whole body.  With a subtlety which few women would have dreamed of, Diane, to the great amazement of the marquise, had brought her son with her.  After a moment’s reflection, Madame d’Espard pressed the princess’s hand, with a look of intelligence that seemed to say:—­

“I understand you!  By making d’Arthez accept all the difficulties at once you will not have to conquer them later.”