We drove on for fifteen posts without stopping, and passed the night at Valence. The food was bad, but Marcoline forgot her discomfort in talking of Irene.
"Do you know," said she, "that if it had been in my power I should have taken her from her parents. I believe she is your daughter, though she is not like you."
"How can she be my daughter when I have never known her mother?"
"She told me that certainly."
"Didn't she tell you anything else?"
"Yes, she told me that you lived with her for three days and bought her maidenhead for a thousand sequins."
"Quite so, but did she tell you that I paid the money to her father?"
"Yes, the little fool doesn't keep anything for herself. I don't think I should ever be jealous of your mistresses, if you let me sleep with them. Is not that a mark of a good disposition? Tell me."
"You have, no doubt, a good disposition, but you could be quite as good without your dominant passion."
"It is not a passion. I only have desires for those I love."