“Neither Madame de l’Estorade nor I have the least desire to go out this evening; we are very tired with our expedition.  Take Rene and Nais; they will enjoy the fairies far more than we.”

The two children awaited in deep anxiety the permission which Madame de l’Estorade finally granted; and a few moments later the two friends, left to themselves, prepared for an evening of comfortable talk.

“I am not at home to any one,” said Madame de l’Estorade to Lucas, as soon as her family had departed.

“Now that we are alone,” said Madame de Camps, “I shall proceed to blows; I have not travelled two hundred miles to wrap up in cotton-wool the truth I have come to tell you.”

“Ready to hear it,” said Madame de l’Estorade, laughing.

“Your last letter, my dear, simply frightened me.”

“Why?  Because I told you I was trying to keep a man at a distance?”

“Yes.  Why keep him at a distance?  If Monsieur de Camps or Monsieur Gaston or Monsieur de Rastignac were to make a practice of coming here habitually, would you trouble yourself about them?”

“No; but they have not the same claim upon me:  it is that I fear.”

“Tell me, do you think Monsieur de Sallenauve loves you?”

“No; I am now quite sure to the contrary; and I also think that on my side—­”

“We’ll talk about that presently; now I want to ask if you desire Monsieur de Sallenauve to love you?”

“Heaven forbid!”

“Well, then, the best possible way to make him do so is to wound his self-love, and show yourself unjust and ungrateful to him; you will only force him to think the more of you.”

“But, my dear friend, isn’t that a very far-fetched observation?”

“Did you never observe that men are more taken by our snubs than by our caresses?  Severity fixes their attention upon us.”

“If that were so, all the men we disdain and never think of would sigh for us.”

“Oh! my dear, don’t make me talk such nonsense.  To take fire, a man must have some degree of combustibility; and if that other person is lost to him forever, why shouldn’t he, as you said yourself, ricochet upon you?”

“That other person is not lost to him; he expects, more than ever, to find her by the help of a very clever seeker, the mother-superior of a convent at Arcis.”

“Very good; then why employ the delay in holding him at arm’s-length,—­a proceeding which will only draw him towards you?”

“My dear moralist, I don’t admit your theory in the least.  As for Monsieur de Sallenauve, he will be much too busy with his duties in the Chamber to think of me.  Besides, he is a man who is full of self-respect; he will be mortified by my manner, which will seem to him both ungrateful and unjust.  If I try to put two feet of distance between us, he will put four; you may rely on that.”

“And you, my dear?” asked Madame de Camps.