Mais peut-être est-il mon vainqueur?
‘Tout ce qu’il dit me semble plein de charmes!
Tout ce qu’il ne dit pas, n’en peut avoir pour moi,
Mon cœur as-tu mis bas les armes?
Je n’en sais rien, mais je le crois.
‘Do not these verses when placed by the side of those of the Grecian Sappho justify for ever my heresy?’
‘I should be guilty myself of the heresy of self-complacency were I to subscribe your justification,’ cries Sappho with a delicious air of raillery.
‘Madame, the device of Eros Masqué serves another purpose besides that of charming the fancy by its grace and drollery.... It makes Confession innocent, for although that Sacrament is detested by Précieuses as fiercely as by Protestants, the most precise and prudish of Précieuses could scarce take umbrage at a Confession expressed by a string of naïve questions.’
‘There, Madame, you show a deplorable ignorance of the geography of the heart of at least one Précieuse. I can picture myself white with indignation on receiving the Socratic Confession you describe,’ says Sappho, but the ice of her accents thaws into two delicious little dimples.
‘“Mais votre fermeté tient un peu du barbare,” to quote the great Corneille,’ cries Madeleine with a smile. ‘You called it a Socratic Confession, alluding I presume to the fact that it was cast in the form of questions, but a Socratic Confession, if my professors have not misled me, is very close to a Platonic one. Can you picture yourself white with rage at receiving a Platonic Confession?’