"This idea is absurd! is madness!" cried the princess. "To wish to
live thus alone, is to carry immorality and immodesty to their utmost
limits."

"If so, madame," said Adrienne, "what opinion must you entertain of so
many poor girls, orphans like myself, who live alone and free, as I
wish to live? They have not received, as I have, a refined education,
calculated to raise the soul, and purify the heart. They have not
wealth, as I have, to protect them from the evil temptations of misery;
and yet they live honestly and proudly in their distress."

"Vice and virtue do not exist for such tag-rag vermin!" cried Baron
Tripeaud, with an expression of anger and hideous disdain.

"Madame, you would turn away a lackey, that would venture to speak thus
before you," said Adrienne to her aunt, unable to conceal her disgust,
"and yet you oblige me to listen to such speeches!"

The Marquis d'Aigrigny touched M. Tripeaud with his knee under the
table, to remind him that he must not express himself in the princess's
parlors in the same manner as he would in the lobbies of the Exchange.
To repair the baron's coarseness, the abbe thus continued: "There is no
comparison, mademoiselle, between people of the class you name, and a
young lady of your rank."

"For a Catholic priest, M. l'Abbe, that distinction is not very
Christian," replied Adrienne.

"I know the purport of my words, madame," answered the abbe, dryly;
"besides the independent life that you wish to lead, in opposition to
all reason, may tend to very serious consequences for you. Your family
may one day wish to see you married--"

"I will spare my family that trouble, sir, if I marry at all, I will
choose for myself, which also appears to me reasonable enough. But, in
truth, I am very little tempted by that heavy chain, which selfishness
and brutality rivet for ever about our necks."

"It is indecent, madame," said the princess, "to speak so lightly of
such an institution."

"Before you, especially, madame, I beg pardon for having shocked your
highness! You fear that my independent planner of living will frighten
away all wooers; but that is another reason for persisting in my
independence, for I detest wooers. I only hope that they may have the
very worst opinion of me, and there is no better means of effecting that
object, than to appear to live as they live themselves. I rely upon my
whims, my follies, my sweet faults, to preserve me from the annoyance of
any ma