"By the way," said M. de Cernay to me, with a smile, "although I am not sufficiently intimate with Madame de Pënâfiel to know why she does not marry again, I know her quite well enough to present you to her if you wish for an introduction, and if she does; which is more than I can answer for, because she is fanciful and has her whims; but as I am going to pay her a visit, I can ask her, if you say so."
Thinking how ridiculous and in what bad taste this request would seem to Madame de Pënâfiel, should she have overheard my defence of her, and fearing lest M. de Cernay would really do as he threatened, I said to him, quickly and very seriously:
"For a reason which I do not wish to give, I beg you, indeed I really desire you, not to mention my name to Madame de Pënâfiel."
"Really!" said the count, as he looked at me attentively; "and why not? What an idea!"
"I must beg you most seriously not to do anything of the kind," I repeated slowly, as I wished to impress M. de Cernay with the fact that I did not wish to be mentioned at all.
"Very well," he said, "it shall be as you wish; but you are wrong, for you will miss an opportunity of seeing how fascinating she can be."
He went out, and I also went to pay my respects to several of my lady acquaintances. The scandal of the hour was that Madame de Pënâfiel was responsible for the death of M. de Merteuil, and that now she had fallen a victim to a sudden passion for Ismaël. Nobody could talk about anything else. To all the women who repeated this story to me, with numerous variations on the theme, and various exclamations on such hard-heartedness and levity, I replied (presuming that all these fair ladies were assiduous guests at all of Madame de Pënâfiel's entertainments)—I replied, I say, with a melancholy tone, that nothing could be more deplorable, more odious, more unfortunate, but that, thanks to the respect society owed to its own dignity, this shameless marquise, who had fallen so furiously in love with a Turk, would be surely made to suffer for her abominable behaviour; for surely no self-respecting woman would ever again set her foot inside the door of the Hôtel de Pënâfiel. Then I bowed and returned to my loge.
I found M. de Cernay there, and M. du Pluvier, who had finished his involuntary race of that morning by a fall, which, fortunately, was not a dangerous one.
"Ah," said the count, "this is worse than all."
"Is it another coat of black for Madame de Pënâfiel?"