"Don't be a child," cries the viscount; "come to supper! You will lose your time and your trouble!"
"Perhaps!"
"Will you bet?"
"I will!"
"A hundred louis!"
"Done!"
The two epicureans touched hands, and Romieu arranged the terms of the bet as if it were an ordinary one. For them, in fact, the stake was not very heavy—a hundred louis and a woman's honor!
"Remain, then," said Romieu, as he departed, "and recollect that you have fifteen days only!"
When the fair unknown, leaning on the arm of her escort, quitted the opera, she observed a man who made himself a path towards her through the crowd, and regarded her with passionate earnestness. Then she cast down her eyes, and dared no longer to look around. In going from the theatre to her hotel, it appeared to her also that a carriage followed her own. These two incidents troubled her a little, but she soon forgot them; and when she fell asleep, she dreamed neither of the opera, nor the stranger. The angels of dreams, during her repose, carried her, on their white wings, far from Paris, under the pure sky of her native town. But when she arose, all fresh and rosy, and ran to the window to breathe the fresh morning air, she perceived a man passing under the balcony, and recognized the stranger.
"Ah, my God!" cried she, "this gentleman has strange manners! I am afraid there would be a quarrel, or I would speak to my brother about it!"
Louise de ***** had as yet read no romances.
A LOVE-LETTER.
If there exist in Paris (this unjustly slandered city) much corruption, it is not that less virtue is found there than elsewhere; but it is that vice there knows how to be amiable, and how to encircle its enemy with snares often inevitable.
In Paris, exists a class of men who have made the art of seduction a perfect science. They attack a woman as a fortified place. They know precisely how many curves and parabolas their sighs must describe before firing the heart of their future conquest. Love is for them an algebraic equation, and their plan of attack is always graduated in proportion to the means of resistance.
And these men are more dangerous, inasmuch as their infamous calculations are not always the result of a frigid egotism. Commonly, they owe their experience to long suffering and numberless deceptions. By the wounds inflicted on their own hearts, they have learned to know the vulnerable points of the hearts which they attack. If pitiless, it is because they have not been pitied. They retaliate upon others the mortal blows which they have received. They not only seduce, they avenge themselves.
There exist, however, obstacles, against which all their science fails. And as famous fencers are generally killed by youngsters who know not how to hold a sword, thus all the experience of these famous seducers is set to nought and frustrated by the ignorance and simplicity of a school-girl.
About noon, Louise de ***** left the hotel, accompanied by her brother, and visiting the richest shops in Paris, there made numerous purchases. She observed that a man followed her at a distance, and stopped when she stopped. As often as she came out of a shop she hoped to be relieved from the impertinent pursuit of this stranger, but to her surprise, he still followed. Finally, she came to the celebrated shop of Susse; the crowd was great, and it behoved to wait a little. But what was her amazement when she perceived M. Hypolite Royer Collard (for it was he) approaching her in silence, pretending to examine the objects placed on the counter.
Louise de ***** held in her hand one of those bags which are called reticules. As she held it out to the clerk to have her purchase therein placed, Hypolite, who was near her, took the purchase from the hands of the clerk, and handed it to Louse de *****. All this was done in a very natural way. At this moment, the brother of the young girl returned, and cast upon Royer Collard a glance almost threatening.
This scene, so ordinary in appearance, was not however deficient in a certain degree of interest. Royer Collard turned about coolly, as if he had performed a simple act of politeness, yet, notwithstanding, in the packet which he handed to Louise de *****, he had slipped a letter. At this insolence, the young girl grew pale with indignation, but she had noticed her brother's glance, and dreading an explosion, the result of which might be terrible, she restrained herself. To return, or to destroy the letter was impossible; a scene would inevitably ensue. On that Hypolite had trusted. The young girl put up the package, at the same time casting upon Royer Collard a glance of contempt, which seemed to say, "I take your letter because I cannot do otherwise; but you are beneath notice."
