And so, having completely satisfied myself of your happiness, I fly off contented to my dear Chantepleurs, where Felipe must really achieve his aspirations.  I have made up my mind not to receive you there without a fine baby at my breast to match yours.

Oh!  I know very well I deserve all the epithets you can hurl at me.  I am a fool, a wretch, an idiot.  Alas! that is just what jealousy means.  I am not vexed with you, but I was miserable, and you will forgive me for escaping from my misery.  Two days more, and I should have made an exhibition of myself; yes, there would have been an outbreak of vulgarity.

But in spite of the rage gnawing at my heart, I am glad to have come, glad to have seen you in the pride of your beautiful motherhood, my friend still, as I remain yours in all the absorption of my love.  Why, even here at Marseilles, only a step from your door, I begin to feel proud of you and of the splendid mother that you will make.

How well you judged your vocation!  You seem to me born for the part of mother rather than of lover, exactly as the reverse is true of me.  There are women capable of neither, hard-favored or silly women.  A good mother and a passionately loving wife have this in common, that they both need intelligence and discretion ever at hand, and an unfailing command of every womanly art and grace.  Oh!  I watched you well; need I add, sly puss, that I admired you too!  Your children will be happy, but not spoilt, with your tenderness lapping them round and the clear light of your reason playing softly on them.

Tell Louis the truth about my going away, but find some decent excuse for your father-in-law, who seems to act as steward for the establishment; and be careful to do the same for your family—­a true Provencal version of the Harlowe family.  Felipe does not know why I left, and he will never know.  If he asks, I shall contrive to find some colorable pretext, probably that you were jealous of me!  Forgive me this little conventional fib.

Good-bye.  I write in haste, as I want you to get this at lunch-time; and the postilion, who has undertaken to convey it to you, is here, refreshing himself while he waits.

Many kisses to my dear little godson.  Be sure you come to Chantepleurs in October.  I shall be alone there all the time that Macumer is away in Sardinia, where he is designing great improvements in his estate.  At least that is his plan for the moment, and his pet vanity consists in having a plan.  Then he feels that he has a will of his own, and this makes him very uneasy when he unfolds it to me.  Good-bye!

XXXVI

THE VICOMTESSE DE L’ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE MACUMER