“If that were so, all the men we disdain and never think of would sigh for us.”
“Oh! my dear, don’t make me talk such nonsense. To take fire, a man must have some degree of combustibility; and if that other person is lost to him forever, why shouldn’t he, as you said yourself, ricochet upon you?”
“That other person is not lost to him; he expects, more than ever, to find her by the help of a very clever seeker, the mother-superior of a convent at Arcis.”
“Very good; then why employ the delay in holding him at arm’s-length,—a proceeding which will only draw him towards you?”
“My dear moralist, I don’t admit your theory in the least. As for Monsieur de Sallenauve, he will be much too busy with his duties in the Chamber to think of me. Besides, he is a man who is full of self-respect; he will be mortified by my manner, which will seem to him both ungrateful and unjust. If I try to put two feet of distance between us, he will put four; you may rely on that.”
“And you, my dear?” asked Madame de Camps.
“How do you mean?—I?”
“You who are not busy, who have no Chamber to occupy your mind; you who have, I will agree, a great deal of self-respect, but who know as little about the things of the heart as the veriest school-girl,—what will become of you under the dangerous system you are imposing upon yourself?”
“If I don’t love him when near, I shall certainly love him still less at a distance.”
“So that when you see him take his ostracism coolly, your self-love as a woman will not be piqued.”