But from their
manner of speaking and looking at each other during that colloquy
beneath the wall, in a corner almost as remote from intrusion as
the desert itself, it was easy to imagine the friendship between
the two men knew no bounds, and that no power on earth could
estrange them.
"My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a
puzzle to you? I would have given you a little advice which
might have brought your flirtation properly through. You must
know, to begin with, that the women of our Faubourg, like any
other women, love to steep themselves in love; but they have a
mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have made a sort
of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish gives
them a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The
sweets enjoyed by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial
sins to be washed away in the waters of penitence. But if you
had the impertinence to ask in earnest for the moral sin to which
naturally you are sure to attach the highest importance, you
would see the deep disdain with which the door of the boudoir and
the house would be incontinently shut upon you. The tender
Antoinette would dismiss everything from her memory; you would be
less than a cipher for her. She would wipe away your kisses, my
dear friend, as indifferently as she would perform her ablutions.
She would sponge love from her cheeks as she washes off rouge.
We know women of that sort--the thorough-bred Parisienne.
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