The most graceful movement succeeded to
complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom she
had just extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her
deeply, and said:
"You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that
you have never loved. It is a man's great pretension with us.
And we always believe it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not
know what to expect from it for ourselves? Where is the man that
has found but a single opportunity of losing his heart? But you
love to deceive us, and we submit to be deceived, poor foolish
creatures that we are; for your hypocrisy is, after all, a homage
paid to the superiority of our sentiments, which are all
purity."
The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the
novice in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep,
while the Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular
heaven.
"Confound it!" thought Armand de Montriveau, "how am I to tell
this wild thing that I love her?"
He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess
had a score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion
in this unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an
interest in her empty life. So she prepared with no little
dexterity to raise a certain number of redoubts for him to carry
by storm before he should gain an entrance into her heart.
Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after another; he
should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect teased
by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in
spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its
mischievous tormentor.
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