ed a savant by the ladies.

Almost at this very moment, the breakfast-bell rang in the court-yard of
the chateau, and she added:

"Ah! there's breakfast, thank Heaven! for I am develish hungry, with all
respect for pure spirits and troubled souls."

She then ran and skipped to the other end of the parlor to greet Monsieur
de Malouet, who was coming in followed by his guests. As to myself, I
promptly offered my arm to Madame Durmaitre, and I endeavored by earnest
attentions, to make her forget the storm which the mere shade of sympathy
she manifests toward me had just attracted upon her.

As you may have remarked, the Little Countess had exhibited in the course
of this scene, as always, an unmeasured and unseemly freedom of language;
but she displayed greater resources of mind than I supposed her capable of
doing, and though they had been directed against me, I could not help
feeling thankful to her--to such an extent do I hate fools, whom I have
ever found in this world more pernicious than wicked people. The result
was, that with the feeling of repulsion and contempt with which the
extravagantly worldly woman inspired me, there was henceforth mingled a
shade of gentle pity for the badly brought-up child and the misdirected
woman.

Women are prompt in catching delicate shades of feeling, and the latter
did not escape Madame de Palme. She became vaguely conscious of a slightly
favorable change in my opinion of her, and it was not long before she even
began to exaggerate its extent and to attempt abusing it. For two days she
pursued me with her keenest shafts, which I bore good-naturedly, and to
which I even responded with some little attentions, for I had still at
heart the rude expressions of my dialogue with Madame de Malouet, and I
did not think I had sufficiently expiated them by the feeble martyrdom I
had undergone the following day in common with the beautiful Malabar
Widow.

This was enough to cause Madame Bathilde de Palme to imagine that she
could treat me as a conquered province, and add Ulysses to his companions.
Day before yesterday she had tested several times during the day the
extent of her growing power over my heart and my will, by asking two or
three little services of me; services to the honor of which every one here
eagerly aspires, and which for my part, I discharged politely but with
evident coolness.

In spite of the extreme reserve with which I had lent myself to these
trials during the da