"You are kind and generous; I know that you have often defended me bravely and loyally, and, alas! I am unaccustomed to be so defended. I know how one evening at the Opéra-- Oh, yes, I overheard what you said," she continued, as she saw how astonished I was. "That was the reason I took the initiative in having you presented to me, and your reserved manner of accepting my hospitality gave me a high opinion of your dignity. Thus I have every confidence in you, and will consider you a true friend; for I must speak,--I must tell some one," she said, with an accent of despair,--"I must tell you--yes, you--why I am the most unfortunate of women." She burst into tears and hid her face in her hands. There was that in her words, and in the pitiful look that accompanied them, something so touching, that in spite of my ill temper I was moved to compassion. Instantly, though, returned the evil thought that this was only the rôle she was playing to force me to a declaration. I hastened to say, in a very supercilious manner, that I hoped I was worthy of her confidence, and if my devotion or my advice could be of the least use to her, I was entirely at her service, and other such commonplace and glacial speeches. As she did not appear to notice the chilly way I received her complaint, I saw only another reason for thinking she was deceiving me, and had scornfully resolved not to be interrupted in her rôle, but to play it to the end, and I was excessively irritated. Now that I know all, I can understand her inadvertence, but at the time it was a positive and aggravating proof of her duplicity. She was inattentive, because the relief caused by the disclosure of a long hidden trouble is so exquisite that, overcome by the blessed effusion, we neither know nor care for the impression we produce. It is only later, when the heart, already lighter, feels refreshed by this divine outpouring, that we look up hopefully, expecting to see in our friend's eyes some sympathetic tears, or some expression of commiseration. Thus, when two friends meet after a long and painful separation, in the rapture of the first embrace neither thinks of noticing if the other is changed. Having thus, as it were, broken the ice, Madame de Pënâfiel continued, after passing her hand over her tearful eyes: "It would be very easy for me to explain the extraordinary confidence I have in you. I know that, although you have often defended me from slander, you have never attempted to reap any advantage from your loyal conduct; then the isolation in which you live, although moving in the gay world, your reserve, your superiority of mind, which is unlike others, and entirely your own, virtues and defects,--everything tends to my accepting you as a sincere and generous friend, to whom I can tell all my sorrows and all I suffer."