These remarks are spoken apropos of Madame de Pënâfiel, whom I began to see quite frequently, and very soon saw every day. As it usually happens, I found her totally different from the descriptions that had been given me. She had been described as haughty and imperious, I had found her only dignified; ironical and scornful, I had never seen her so except towards low-lived persons, who well deserved such treatment; unkind and hateful, she had seemed to me kind and pitiful; fantastic, capricious, and morose, I had seen her sad, but very rarely. Now this marked dissimilarity between what I heard and what I saw, ought it to be credited to the deep dissimulation with which Madame de Pënâfiel was accused? I do not know. I do not know even if I was in love with Madame de Pënâfiel, but I felt for her, as I became more and more intimate, a very lively interest, caused as much by her fascination, her mind, by the simplicity with which she admitted certain defects, as by the persistent way that she was continually attacked, a persistence that had cost me many violent discussions. It is not without a certain amount of vainglory that I recall this circumstance, for nothing is more frequent than the cowardly way that we join the backbiters, when they tear our absent friends to pieces. Besides, I had begun to discover the falseness of the many absurdities that at first I had given credence to. Thus when I knew her well enough to speak confidentially, I told her frankly that her presence at that fatal race, where M. de Merteuil had been killed, had appeared strange to every one. With a surprised look she asked me why? I told her that, as M. de Merteuil and M. de Senneterre were both her intimate friends, her devoted admirers indeed-- But without giving me time to finish, she exclaimed that it was an outrageous falsehood, that she received M. de Merteuil and M. de Senneterre only on her days of reception; that she hardly ever saw them in the morning; that she was ignorant of the danger they ran. Knowing nothing of their wager, she went to the race as she had gone to many another, and only was prevented remaining until the finish because she was cold. In reply, I told her of the rumour and the public opinion in consequence of it, which was as follows: "She had known both Messieurs de Merteuil and de Senneterre to be in love with her, having inexcusably encouraged their rival attentions; she was thus responsible for this murderous challenge, and her careless departure from the ground before the end of the race had given as much offence as her presence on the race-course; finally, her appearing that night in a conspicuous box at the Opéra was the height of disdainful heartlessness."