away tears; he brings quarrelsome lovers
together; he asks for the letters that must be returned; he hands back
the photographs (for you know that in love affairs photographs are
taken only in order to be returned, and it is nearly always the same
photograph that serves as many times as may be necessary. I know one
photograph that I have had handed back by three different men, and it
ended its usefulness by being given for good and all to a fourth one,
who was--not single).... In short, you see, my dear madam, I am above
all the friend of those women--who have known what it is to be in
love. And moreover inasmuch, just as Rochefoucauld says, as women do
not think a great deal of their first experience,--why, one fine day
or another--

_Madame Leverdet_--You prove to be the second one.

_De Ryons_--No, no; I have no number, I! A well-brought-up woman never
goes from one experience of the heart to another one, without a decent
interval of time, more or less long. Two railroad accidents never come
together on the same railway. During the _intervals_ a woman really
needs a friend, a good confidant; and it is then that I turn up. I let
her tell me all the melancholy affairs in question; I see the unhappy
victim in tears after the traitor has called; I lament with her, I
weep with her, I make her laugh with me: and little by little I
replace the delinquent without her seeing that I am doing so. But then
I know very well that I am without importance, that I am a mere
politician of the moment, a cabinet minister without a portfolio, a
sentimental distraction without any consequences; and some fine day,
after having been the confidential friend as to past events, I become
the confidential friend as to future ones,--for the lady falls in love
for the second time with somebody who knows nothing of the first
experience, who will never know anything about it, and who of course
must be made to suppose he represents the first one. Then I go away
for a little time and leave them to themselves, and then I come back
like a new friend to the family. By-and-by, when the dear creature is
reckoning up the balance-sheet of her past, when her conscience pours
into her ear the names that she would rather not remember, and my name
comes with the others, she reflects an instant,--and then she says
resolutely and sincerely to herself, "Oh, _he_ does not count!" My
friend, I am always the one that does not count, and I like it
extremely.

_Mada