the Queen-Dauphin to her, that I can't believe you have been ill; I think the Prince of Conde, when he told us the duke de Nemours's opinion of the ball, persuaded you, that to go there would be doing a favour to the mareschal de St. André, and that that's the reason which hindered you from going, Madam de Cleves blushed, both because the queen-dauphin had conjectured right, and because she spoke her conjecture in the presence of the duke de Nemours.
Madam de Chartres immediately perceived the true reason, why her daughter refused to go to the ball; and to prevent the duke de Nemours discovering it, as well as herself, she took up the discourse after a manner that gave what she said an air of truth.I assure you, madam, said she to the queen-dauphin, that your majesty has done my daughter more honour than she deserves; she was really indisposed, but I believe, if I had not hindered her, she would not have failed to wait on you, and to show herself under any disadvantages, for the pleasure of seeing what there was extraordinary at yesterday's entertainment. The queen-dauphin gave credit to what madam de Chartres said but the duke de Nemours was sorry to find so much probability in it: nevertheless, the blushes of the princess of Cleves made him suspect, that what the queen-dauphin had said was not altogether false. The princess of Cleves at first was concerned the duke had any room to believe it was he who had hindered her from going to the mareschal de St. André; but afterwards she was a little chagrined that her mother had entirely taken off the suspicion of it.
Madam de Chartres was not willing to let her daughter see that she knew her sentiments for the duke, for fear of making herself suspected in some things which she was very desirous to tell her. One day she set herself to talk about him, and a great deal of good she said of him, but mixed with it abundance of sham praises, as the prudence he showed in never falling in love, and how wise he was to make the affair of women and love an amusement instead of a serious
