This look had no small effect on the cardinal; he began to think he had never met a woman prettier or more attractive. “Ah, ma foi!” said he to himself, with the eternally scheming spirit of a man used to diplomacy, “it would be too extraordinary and too fortunate if I have met at once an honest woman with the attractions of a scheming one, and found in this poverty an able coadjutrix to my desires.”
“Monseigneur, the silence you keep every now and then disquiets me.”
“Why so, countess?”
“Because a man like you only fails in politeness to two kinds of women.”
“Mon Dieu! countess, you frighten me. What are you about to say?” and he took her hand.
“I repeat it,” said she, “with women that you love too much, or with women whom you do not esteem enough to be polite to.”
“Countess, you make me blush. Have I, then, failed in politeness towards you?”
“Rather so, monseigneur; and yet you cannot love me too much, and I have given you no cause to despise me.”
“Oh, countess, you speak as if you were angry with me.”
“No, monseigneur; you have not yet merited my anger.”