Arthez's heart, "as they are here" (pressing the
upper end of her busk beneath her fingers), "then you are not the grand
d'Arthez I think you--I shall have been deceived."

A tear moistened d'Arthez's eyes, and Diane drank it in with a side
look, which, however, gave no motion either to the pupils or the lids of
her eyes. It was quick and neat, like the action of a cat pouncing on a
mouse.

D'Arthez, for the first time, after sixty days of protocols, ventured
to take that warm and perfumed hand, and press it to his lips with a
long-drawn kiss, extending from the wrist to the tip of the fingers,
which made the princess augur well of literature. She thought to herself
that men of genius must know how to love with more perfection than
conceited fops, men of the world, diplomatists, and even soldiers,
although such beings have nothing else to do. She was a connoisseur, and
knew very well that the capacity for love reveals itself chiefly in mere
nothings. A woman well informed in such matters can read her future in
a simple gesture; just as Cuvier could say from the fragment of a bone:
This belonged to an animal of such or such dimensions, with or without
horns, carnivorous, herbivorous, amphibious, etc., age, so many thousand
years. Sure now of finding in d'Arthez as much imagination in love as
there was in his written style, she thought it wise to bring him up at
once to the highest pitch of passion and belief.

She withdrew her hand hastily, with a magnificent movement full of
varied emotions. If she had said in words: "Stop, or I shall die," she
could not have spoken more plainly. She remained for a moment with
her eyes in d'Arthez's eyes, expressing in that one glance happiness,
prudery, fear, confidence, languor, a vague longing, and virgin modesty.
She was twenty years old! but remember, she had prepared for this hour
of comic falsehood by the choicest art of dress; she was there in her
armchair like a flower, ready to blossom at the first kiss of sunshine.
True or false, she intoxicated Daniel.

It if is permissible to risk a personal opinion we must avow that it
would be delightful to be thus deceived for a good long time. Certainly
Talma on the stage was often above and beyond nature, but the Princesse
de Cadignan is the greatest true comedian of our day. Nothing was
wanting to this woman but an attentive audience. Unfortunately, at
epochs perturbed by political storms, women disappear like water-lilies
which n