have no desire to flatter you,
but it gives me pleasure to say, that you are worth more than he. You
are young, you are making your debut in the world, and you are
regarded as a man who has never yet had any love affairs. The
Chevalier has lived; what woman will not appreciate these differences?

XXI

The Comedy of Contrariness

Probity in love, Marquis? How can you think of such a thing? Ah, you
are like a drowned man. I shall take good care not to show your letter
to any one, it would dishonor you. You do not know how to undertake
the manoeuvres I have advised you to make, you say? Your candor, your
high sentiments made your fortune formerly! Well, love was then
treated like an affair of honor, but nowadays, the corruption of the
age has changed all that; love is now nothing more than a play of the
humor and of vanity.

Your inexperience still leaves your virtues in an inflexible condition
that will inevitably cause your ruin, if you have not enough
intelligence to bring them into accord with the morals of the times.
One can not now wear his sentiments on his sleeve. Everything is show;
payment is made in airs, demonstrations, signs. Everybody is playing a
comedy, and men have had excellent reasons for keeping up the farce.
They have discovered the fact that nobody can gain anything by telling
the actual truth about women. There is a general agreement to
substitute for this sincerity a collection of contrary phrases. And
this custom has proved contagious in cases of gallantry.

In spite of your high principles, you will agree with me, that unless
that custom, called "politeness," is not pushed so far as irony or
treason, it is a sociable virtue to follow, and of all the relations
among men, the true meaning of gallantry has more need of being
concealed than that of any other social affair. How many occasions do
you not find where a lover gains more by dissimulating the excess of
his passion, than another who pretends to have more than he really
has?

I think I understand the Countess; she is more skillful than you. I am
certain she dissimulates her affection for you with greater care than
you take to multiply proofs of yours for her. I repeat; the less you
expose yourself, the better you will be treated. Let her worry in her
turn; inspire her with the fear that she will lose you, and see her
come around. It is the surest way of finding out the true position you
occupy in her heart. Adieu.

XXII