Frédérique nodded slightly in acknowledgment of my bow, but not a word, not a smile.
"Upon my word," thought I, "she's very sensitive for a gaillarde!"
Armantine, I had been told, was a flirt; and, indeed, I had been several times in a position to judge that it was not safe to rely on the hopes she aroused. But, without flattering myself that I could cure her of that failing, it was possible that she might love me. After all, I had never yet met a perfect woman; in truth, I had never sought one. In short, that lady had turned my head again by her glances and her smiles, and I had already forgotten the way she treated me at her two receptions; the resolution I had formed not to expose myself again to the risk of being made the plaything of a coquette did not hold out against the allurements she had practised on me. Mon Dieu! why should we keep our resolutions in love, when we have no resolution at all in respect to the most serious matters?
On the day following this meeting, I could contain myself no longer, and I made a careful toilet with the purpose of calling on Madame Sordeville; for I had noticed that she attached some importance to the costumes of her guests. That was another pardonable foible in a woman who thought constantly of dress, and who believed, in all probability, that everybody agreed with her as to the momentous nature of the subject.
I was preparing to go out, when Pomponne brought me a letter which had just been handed to the concierge with the request that it be delivered to me at once.
I did not know the writing; in such cases, the first thing one does after breaking the seal is to look at the signature. I saw at the foot of the page: Frédérique.
What! Madame Dauberny writing to me! I lost no further time in reading the letter.
"You are probably intending to go to Madame Sordeville's. Do not go there, do not go to that house again; this is the best advice I can give you. If you are really desirous to see Armantine, if your love for her has revived, thanks to the coquetries she lavished upon you yesterday, see her elsewhere than at her own house. I write you these lines because I remember our pleasant intimacy, which was of short duration, but which has left in my heart marks of its passage. So, trust me and take my advice. I should consider that I insulted you if I should ask you not to mention this warning.
"FRÉDÉRIQUE."
The contents of that letter seemed to me most extraordinary. I read it over several times, but could not understand it. Frédérique urged me not to go to Madame Sordeville's, but she gave me no reason, no hint, as to the purpose of that warning. It could be nothing more than a freak, the result of momentary ill humor with her friend. I was much perplexed by the letter, but I had no idea of following the advice contained therein. Indeed, for some time past, Madame Dauberny had treated me so strangely, she had been so cold to me, that I found it hard to believe in that recrudescence of friendship of which she spoke in her letter. If she meant the warning seriously, why did she not come and speak to me herself? She had told me several times that she had no more hesitation in calling on a young man than on a friend of her own sex.