Tell me all, and perhaps I may bring it all right again."
"Aunt, I promise----"
"To tell me everything?"
"Yes, everything. Everything that can be told."
"But, my sweetheart, it is precisely what cannot be told that I
want to know. Let us understand each other thoroughly. Come,
let me put my withered old lips on your beautiful forehead. No;
let me do as I wish. I forbid you to kiss my bones. Old people
have a courtesy of their own. . . . There, take me down to my
carriage," she added, when she had kissed her niece.
"Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?"
"Why--yes. The story can always be denied," said the old
Princess.
This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in
the sermon. When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her
carriage, Mme de Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up
to her room. She was quite happy again.
"My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man
cannot surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to
offer herself."
That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de
Pamiers, M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de
Maufrigneuse triumphantly refuted the scandals that were
circulating with regard to the Duchesse de Langeais. So many
officers and other persons had seen Montriveau walking in the
Tuileries that morning, that the silly story was set down to
chance, which takes all that is offered. And so, in spite of the
fact that the Duchess's carriage had waited before Montriveau's
door, her character became as clear and as spotless as Membrino's
sword after Sancho had polished it up.
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