th you the tone of a pedagogue?
Assuredly not, both of us would lose too much thereby. I should become
weary and you would not be reformed.

XLVIII

Friendship Must Be Firm

I do not conceal it, Marquis, your conduct in regard to the Countess
had put me out of patience with you, and I was tempted to break off
all my relations with so wicked a man as you. My good nature in
yielding to your entreaties inclines me to the belief that my
friendship for you borders on a weakness. You are right, though. To be
your friend only so long as you follow my advice would not be true
friendship. The more you are to be censured the stronger ought to be
my hold on you, but you will understand that one is not master of his
first thoughts. Whatever effort I may make to find you less guilty,
the sympathy I have for the misfortune of my friend is of still
greater importance to me. There were moments when I could not believe
in your innocence, and they were when so charming a woman complained
of you. Now that her situation is improving every day, I consider my
harshness in my last letter almost as a crime.

I shall, hereafter, content myself with pitying her without
importuning you any longer about her. So let us resume our ordinary
gait, if it please you. You need no longer fear my reproaches, I see
they would be useless as well as out of place.

XLIX

Constancy Is a Virtue Among the Narrow Minded

You did not then know, Marquis, that it is often more difficult to get
rid of a mistress than to acquire one? You are learning by experience.
Your disgust for the moneyed woman does not surprise me except that it
did not happen sooner.

What! knowing her character so well, you could imagine that the
despair she pretended at the sight of your indifference increasing
every day, could be the effect of a veritable passion? You could also
be the dupe of her management! I admire, and I pity your blindness.

But was it not also vanity which aided a trifle in fortifying your
illusion? In truth it would be a strange sort of vanity, that of being
loved by such a woman; but men are so vain, that they are flattered by
the love of the most confirmed courtesan. In any case undeceive
yourself. A woman who is deserted, when she is a woman like your
beauty, has nothing in view in her sorrow but her own interest. She
endeavors by her tears and her despair, to persuade you that your
person and your merit are all she regrets; that the loss