him when he does come. He is one of the
most amiable men I am acquainted with. I shall be very angry with you
if you fail to bring him to me on my return from Versailles. I want
him to sing me the last couplets he has composed, I am told they are
charming.

XLVI

Why Inconstancy Is Not Injustice

It was too kind of you, Marquis, to have noticed my absence. If I did
not write you during my sojourn in the country, it was because I knew
you were happy, and that tranquilized me. I felt too, that it was
necessary for love to be accorded some rights, as its reign is usually
very short, and besides that, friendship not having any quarrel with
love, I waited patiently an interval in your pleasure which would
enable you to read my letters.

Do you know what I was doing while away? I amused myself by piecing
out all the events liable to happen in the condition your society is
now in. I foresaw the bickerings between the Countess and her rival,
and I predicted they would end in an open rupture; I also guessed that
the Marquise would not espouse the cause of the Countess, but would
take up the other's quarrel. The moneyed woman is not quite so
handsome as her rival, a decisive reason for declaring for her and
backing her up without danger.

What will be the upshot of all this quarreling among these women? How
many revolutions, Good Heavens! in so short a time! Your happiness
seems to be the only thing that has escaped. You discover new reasons
every day for loving and esteeming this amiable Countess. You believe
that a woman of so much real merit, and with so interesting a figure,
will become known more and more. Let nothing weaken the esteem you
have always had for her. You have, it is true, obtained an avowal of
her love for you, but is she less estimable for that? On the contrary,
ought not her heart to augment in price in your eyes, in proportion to
the certainty you have acquired that you are its sole possessor? Even
if you shall have obtained proofs of her inclination we spoke about
recently, do you think that gives you any right to underrate her?

I can not avoid saying it; men like you arouse my indignation every
time they imagine they claim the right to lack in courtesy for my sex,
and punish us for our weaknesses. Is it not the height of injustice
and the depth of depravity to continue to insult the grief which is
the cause of their changes? Can not women be inconstant without being
unjust? Is their distas