"This is the young man of whom I spoke to you the other day—a man of very distinguished merit; he is of unexceptionable birth and I think that it cannot be otherwise than agreeable to you to receive him; that is why I have taken the liberty to present him to you."
"Assuredly, monsieur, you have done well," rejoined the lady, with a most outrageously affected manner. Then she turned to me, and after looking me over out of the corner of her eye, like a clever connoisseur, and in a way that made me blush to my ears, she said: "You may consider yourself invited once for all, and come as often as you have an evening to waste."
I bowed awkwardly enough, and stammered a few disconnected words which could not have given her a very exalted opinion of my talents; other persons came in and I was delivered from the ennui inseparable from an introduction. De C—— led me to a window recess and began to lecture me vigorously.
"What the devil! you will get me into a scrape; I announced you as a perfect phœnix of wit, a man of unbridled imagination, a lyric poet, everything that is most transcendent and impassioned, and you stand there like a ninny without lisping a word. What a wretched imagination! I thought your vein was more fruitful; come, come, give your tongue the rein, chatter away through thick and thin; you don't need to say sensible, judicious things, on the contrary, they might injure your chances; talk, that's the main thing; talk fast, talk all the time; attract attention to yourself; throw aside all fear and all modesty; fix it firmly in your head that all who are here are fools, or almost that, and don't forget that an orator who wants to succeed cannot despise his audience enough.—What do you think of the mistress of the house?"
"I dislike her very much already; and although I talked with her hardly three minutes, I was as bored as if I were her husband."
"Aha! that's what you think of her, eh?"
"Why, yes."
"Is your repugnance for her altogether insurmountable?—So much the worse; it would have been decent for you to have her, if only for a month; it's good form, and a young man with a little money can't get into society except through her."
"Very good! I'll have her," I said piteously, "since it must be; but is it as necessary as you seem to think?"
"Alas! yes, it is absolutely indispensable, and I will tell you why. Madame de Thémines is the fashion now; she has all the absurd foibles of the day in a superior way,—sometimes those of to-morrow, but never yesterday's: she is thoroughly posted. People will wear what she wears, and she never wears what any one else has worn. She is rich, too, and her carriages are in the best taste.—She has no wit, but much small-talk; she has very keen fancies and little passion. People amuse her but do not move her; she has a cold heart and a dissolute head. As for her soul—if she has one, which is doubtful—it is of the blackest, and there is no malice and baseness of which she is not capable; but she is extremely adroit and keeps up appearances, just what is necessary to prevent anything being proved against her. For instance, she will lie with a man, but she will never write him the simplest kind of a note. Thus her most intimate enemies can find nothing to say against her except that she applies too much rouge and that certain parts of her person are not, in fact, so well rounded as they seem to be—which is false."