It is impossible to be more surprised than I am, said madam de Cleves; I thought madam de Tournon equally incapable of loveand falsehood. Address and dissimulation, replied monsieur de Cleves, cannot go further than she carried them; observe, that when Sancerre thought her love to him was abated, it really was, and she began to love Etouteville; she told the last that he removed her sorrow for her husband's death, and that he was the cause of her quitting her retirement. Sancerre believed the cause was nothing but a resolution she had taken not to seem any longer to be in such deep affliction; she made a merit to Etouteville of concealing her correspondence with him, and of seeming forced to marry him by her father's command, as if it was an effect of the care she had of her reputation; whereas it was only an artifice to forsake Sancerre, without his having reason to resent it. I must return, continued Mr. de Cleves, to see this unhappy man, and I believe you would do well to go to Paris too; it is time for you to appear in the world again, and receive the numerous visits which you can't well dispense with.
Madam de Cleves agreed to the proposal, and returned to Paris the next day; she found herself much more easy with respect to the duke de Nemours than she had been; what her mother had told her on her death-bed, and her grief for her death, created a sort of suspension in her mind as to her passion for the duke, which made her believe it was quite effaced.
The evening of her arrival the queen-dauphin made her a visit, and after having condoled with her, told her that in order to divert her from melancholy thoughts, she would let her know all that had passed at court in her absence; upon which she related to her a great many extraordinary things; but what I have the greatest desire to inform you of, added she, is that it is certain the duke de Nemours is passionately in love; and that his most intimate friends are not only not entrusted in it, but can't so much as guess who the person is he is in
