“Let time, dearest,” she answered, “satisfy our mutual curiosity.”
M—— M—— had, amongst the charms and trinkets fastened to the chain of her watch, a small crystal bottle exactly similar to one that I wore myself. I called her attention to that fact, and as mine was filled with cotton soaked in otto of roses I made her smell it.
“I have the same,” she observed.
And she made me inhale its fragrance.
“It is a very scarce perfume,” I said, “and very expensive.”
“Yes; in fact it cannot be bought.”
“Very true; the inventor of that essence wears a crown; it is the King of France; his majesty made a pound of it, which cost him thirty thousand crowns.”
“Mine was a gift presented to my lover, and he gave it to me.”
“Madame de Pompadour sent a small phial of it to M. de Mocenigo, the Venetian ambassador in Paris, through M. de B——, now French ambassador here.”
“Do you know him?”