My first impulse was to go to Catherine at once.
I reflected, however, that this meeting was not likely to change the fate of my love. I remembered the harshness with which Madame de Fersen had behaved, and foolishly fancied my dignity required that I should not yield to the first advance.
I wrote a very cold and polite letter, apologising for not going to her as she requested, and said she could not fail to understand my reasons.
To this she made no answer.
I concluded that she had not a very great desire to see me since she did not insist. I therefore congratulated myself on the course I had taken.
I soon heard that the prince had been called back to Russia by his court, and was surprised, I must confess, that his wife did not accompany him.
As to Madame de V——, I had implored her, for the sake of the friendship she professed for me, to cease tormenting so cruelly M. de Sérigny, declaring I would no longer lend myself to her coquettish manœuvres; that, moreover, she was compromising herself frightfully, and that sooner or later she would find herself ill-received in society.
She answered that I spoke like a Quaker, but for the joke of the thing she was going to live without a shade of coquetry.
One month after this glorious determination she came to express her gratitude to me, saying that, though this new life was deadly wearisome, it had made a tremendous sensation, and wagers were laid as to whether she would persist in her conversion or not. As to the minister, she said, since he had passed from the stupidity of jealous irritation to the stupidity of blind adoration, she neither gained nor lost in no longer tormenting him.
Consequently, the rumours which had been current about Madame de V—— and myself soon ceased, and I was accused of having deserted her.