t to you women the man you have loved is as
nothing to you; nay, more, he is unpardonable in one thing--he lives on!
You dare not own it, but you all have in your hearts the feeling which
that popular calumny called tradition ascribes to the Lady of the Tour
de Nesle: "What a pity it is that we cannot live on love as we live on
fruit, and that when we have had our fill, nothing should survive but
the remembrance of pleasure!"'

"'God has, no doubt, reserved such perfect bliss for Paradise,' said
she. 'But,' she added, 'if your argument seems to you very witty, to me
it has the disadvantage of being false. What can those women be who give
themselves up to a succession of loves?' she asked, looking at me as the
Virgin in Ingres' picture looks at Louis XIII. offering her his kingdom.

"'You are an actress in good faith,' said I, 'for you gave me a look
just now which would make the fame of an actress. Still, lovely as you
are, you have loved; _ergo_, you forget.'

"'I!' she exclaimed, evading my question, 'I am not a woman. I am a nun,
and seventy-two years old!'

"'Then, how can you so positively assert that you feel more keenly than
I? Sorrow has but one form for women. The only misfortunes they regard
are disappointments of the heart.'

"She looked at me sweetly, and, like all women when stuck between the
issues of a dilemma, or held in the clutches of truth, she persisted,
nevertheless, in her wilfulness.

"'I am a nun,' she said, 'and you talk to me of the world where I shall
never again set foot.'

"'Not even in thought?' said I.

"'Is the world so much to be desired?' she replied. 'Oh! when my mind
wanders, it goes higher. The angel of perfection, the beautiful angel
Gabriel, often sings in my heart. If I were rich, I should work, all the
same, to keep me from soaring too often on the many-tinted wings of the
angel, and wandering in the world of fancy. There are meditations which
are the ruin of us women! I owe much peace of mind to my flowers, though
sometimes they fail to occupy me. On some days I find my soul invaded
by a purposeless expectancy; I cannot banish some idea which takes
possession of me, which seems to make my fingers clumsy. I feel that
some great event is impending, that my life is about to change; I listen
vaguely, I stare into the darkness, I have no liking for my work, and
after a thousand fatigues I find life once more--everyday life. Is this
a warning from heaven? I ask myself----'