precisely what cannot be told that I want
to know. Let us understand each other thoroughly. Come, let me put my
withered old lips on your beautiful forehead. No; let me do as I wish. I
forbid you to kiss my bones. Old people have a courtesy of their own....
There, take me down to my carriage," she added, when she had kissed her
niece.

"Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?"

"Why--yes. The story can always be denied," said the old Princess.

This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in the
sermon. When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her carriage,
Mme de Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up to her room. She
was quite happy again.

"My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man cannot
surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to offer herself."

That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de
Pamiers, M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse
triumphantly refuted the scandals that were circulating with regard to
the Duchesse de Langeais. So many officers and other persons had seen
Montriveau walking in the Tuileries that morning, that the silly story
was set down to chance, which takes all that is offered. And so,
in spite of the fact that the Duchess's carriage had waited before
Montriveau's door, her character became as clear and as spotless as
Membrino's sword after Sancho had polished it up.

But, at two o'clock, M. de Ronquerolles passed Montriveau in a deserted
alley, and said with a smile, "She is coming on, is your Duchess. Go on,
keep it up!" he added, and gave a significant cut of the riding whip to
his mare, who sped off like a bullet down the avenue.

Two days after the fruitless scandal, Mme de Langeais wrote to M. de
Montriveau. That letter, like the preceding ones, remained unanswered.
This time she took her own measures, and bribed M. de Montriveau's man,
Auguste. And so at eight o'clock that evening she was introduced into
Armand's apartment. It was not the room in which that secret scene had
passed; it was entirely different. The Duchess was told that the General
would not be at home that night. Had he two houses? The man would give
no answer. Mme de Langeais had bought the key of the room, but not the
man's whole loyalty.

When she was left alone she saw her fourteen letters lying on an
old-fashioned stand, all of them uncreased and unopened. He had not
read them. She sank into an eas