“Monseigneur, I have told you.”
“How, madame? you write to the ministers for a pension, you accept a hundred louis from an unknown lady——”
“Oh, monseigneur, it is different.”
“Come, I have waited for you in your dining-room. I have not yet seen the boudoir, nor the drawing-room, nor the bedrooms, for I suppose there are all these.”
“Oh, monseigneur, forgive me; you force me to confess that you the most delicate of men,” and she blushed with the pleasure she had been so long restraining. But checking herself, she sat down and said, “Now, will your eminence give me my supper?”
The cardinal took off his cloak, and sat down also.
Supper was served in a few moments. Jeanne put on her mask before the servants came in.
“It is I who ought to wear a mask,” said the cardinal, “for you are at home, among your own people.”
Jeanne laughed, but did not take hers off. In spite of her pleasure and surprise, she made a good supper. The cardinal was a man of much talent, and from his great knowledge of the world and of women, he was a man difficult to contend with, and he thought that this country girl, full of pretension, but who, in spite of her pride, could not conceal her greediness, would be an easy conquest, worth undertaking on account of her beauty, and of a something piquant about her, very pleasing to a man “blasé” like him. He therefore never took pains to be much on his guard with her; and she, more cunning than he thought, saw through his opinion of her, and tried to strengthen it by playing the provincial coquette, and appearing silly, that her adversary might be in reality weak in his over-confidence.
The cardinal thought her completely dazzled by the present he had made her—and so, indeed, she was; but he forgot that he himself was below the mark of the ambition of a woman like Jeanne.