“My steward in Sardinia sent it to me.  He is very proud of it; for this horse, which is of Arab blood, was born in my stables.”

This morning, my dear, Henarez was on an English sorrel, also very fine, but not such as to attract attention.  My light, mocking words had done their work.  He bowed to me and I replied with a slight inclination of the head.

The Duc d’Angouleme has bought Macumer’s horse.  My slave understood that he was deserting the role of simplicity by attracting the notice of the crowd.  A man ought to be remarked for what he is, not for his horse, or anything else belonging to him.  To have too beautiful a horse seems to me a piece of bad taste, just as much as wearing a huge diamond pin.  I was delighted at being able to find fault with him.  Perhaps there may have been a touch of vanity in what he did, very excusable in a poor exile, and I like to see this childishness.

Oh! my dear old preacher, do my love affairs amuse you as much as your dismal philosophy gives me the creeps?  Dear Philip the Second in petticoats, are you comfortable in my barouche?  Do you see those velvet eyes, humble, yet so eloquent, and glorying in their servitude, which flash on me as some one goes by?  He is a hero, Renee, and he wears my livery, and always a red camellia in his buttonhole, while I have always a white one in my hand.

How clear everything becomes in the light of love!  How well I know my Paris now!  It is all transfused with meaning.  And love here is lovelier, grander, more bewitching than elsewhere.

I am convinced now that I could never flirt with a fool or make any impression on him.  It is only men of real distinction who can enter into our feelings and feel our influence.  Oh! my poor friend, forgive me.  I forgot our l’Estorade.  But didn’t you tell me you were going to make a genius of him?  I know what that means.  You will dry nurse him till some day he is able to understand you.

Good-bye.  I am a little off my head, and must stop.

XVIII

MME. DE L’ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU
April.

My angel—­or ought I not rather to say my imp of evil?—­you have, without meaning it, grieved me sorely.  I would say wounded were we not one soul.  And yet it is possible to wound oneself.

How plain it is that you have never realized the force of the word indissoluble as applied to the contract binding man and woman!  I have no wish to controvert what has been laid down by philosophers or legislators—­they are quite capable of doing this for themselves—­but, dear one, in making marriage irrevocable and imposing on it a relentless formula, which admits of no exceptions, they have rendered each union a thing as distinct as one individual is from another.  Each has its own inner laws which differ from those of others.  The laws regulating married life in the country, for instance, cannot be the same as those regulating a household in town, where frequent distractions give variety to life.  Or conversely, married life in Paris, where existence is one perpetual whirl, must demand different treatment from the more peaceful home in the provinces.