“Deceived?” asked Rosas, in a tone of pity that struck Lissac.

“Deceived! yes! deceit is the complementary school of love.”

“Then—­if I loved Marianne?” asked Rosas.

“I would advise you to tell it to her at first, and prove it afterward, and finally to catalogue it in that album whose ashes are sprinkled at the bottom of the marriage gifts.”

“You speak of Mademoiselle Kayser as you would speak of a courtesan,” said the duke, in a choking voice.

“Ah!  I give you my word,” said Lissac, “that I should speak very differently of Mademoiselle Alice Aubry, or of Mademoiselle Cora Touchard.  I would say to you quite frankly:  They are pretty creatures; there is no danger.”

“And Marianne, on the contrary, is dangerous.”

“Oh! perfectly, for you.”

“And why is she not dangerous for you?”

“Why, simply, my dear duke, because I am satisfied to love her as you have hitherto done and because I had, as I told you, the good fortune not to be her lover.”

“But you brought her to Madame Marsy’s this evening?”

“Oh! her uncle accompanied us, but I was there.”

“You offer your arm then to a woman whom, as you have just told me, you consider dangerous?”

“Not for Sabine!—­and then, that is a drop of the absinthe, a little of the hasheesh of which I spoke to you.  One sees only concessions in Paris, and even when one is dead, one needs a further concession, but in perpetuity.  One only becomes one’s self”—­and Guy’s jesting tone became serious,—­“when a worthy fellow like you puts one a question that seems terribly like asking advice.  Then one answers him, as I have just answered you, and cries out to him:  ‘Beware!’”

“I thank you,” said Rosas, suddenly stopping short on the pavement.  “You treat me like a true friend.”

“And if I seem to you to be too severe,” added Lissac, smiling, “charge that to the account of bitterness.  A man that has loved a woman is never altogether just toward her.  If he has ceased to love her, he slights her, if he still loves her, he slanders her.  I have perhaps, traduced Marianne, but I have not slighted you, that is certain.  Now, take advantage of this gossip.  But when?”

“I don’t know,” replied the duke.  “I will write you.  I shall perhaps leave Paris!”

“What is that?”

“Just what I say.”

“The deuce!” said Lissac.  “Do you know that if you were to fly from the danger in question, I should be very uneasy?  It would be very serious.”

“That would not be a flight.  At the most, a caprice,” the duke replied.

They separated, less pleased with each other than they were at the commencement of their interview.  Lissac felt that in some fashion or other, he had wounded Rosas even in adopting the flippant tone of the lounger, without any malice, and the Spaniard with his somewhat morose nature, retired within himself, almost gloomy, and reproached Guy for the first time for smiling or jesting on so serious a matter.