Without showing the least feeling, I replied that she could count on my discretion, which was trustworthy, and besides, as I had no one to talk to, it was all the more safe. "For," said I, "we are only indiscreet with our intimate friends, and I cannot reproach myself with having a single one." "That," said she, "is the very reason why I am encouraged to speak to you as I do. I fancied that you also were alone, that you also had some secret chagrin that you dared not speak of, suffering from your isolated position as I do from mine, for, like you, I have no friends; people hate me, they say wicked things about me, and why? _Mon Dieu!_ have I deserved such treatment? Why is the world so unjust and cruel towards me? Whom have I injured? Oh, if you only knew! If I could tell you all!" Her complaining seemed so childish and weak, her reticence so ill calculated to excite my curiosity, that, assuming a cheerful manner, I began an apology for the world in general. "Since you give me permission to speak as a friend, madame, allow me to say that we must not be too fierce in our attacks on society. Ask yourself what we exact from society. Fêtes, excitement, smiles, homage, flowers, and gilded salons. With all these, the greatest possible latitude in regard to morals, and all the liberty we desire. Now, if society gives us all these, and you must admit that it does, has it not done its entire duty? Then why this constant complaining and railing at the poor world, when all we can reproach it with is its prodigality?" "But you know very well that they are all false. Those smiles, that homage, those attentions, are all lies, you know it! If you receive at home, when the last visitor leaves, you say, 'Well, that is over!' If you go to a brilliant reception, as soon as your foot touches the sill of your own home you say again, 'Well, that is over!'" "Thank Heaven, madame," I answered, pretending not to understand her, for she appeared surprised at my sudden conversion to mundane pleasures, "I assure you I am never so miserable as to be glad that a fête is over. If I ever say, 'Well, it is over!' on my return, it is because I am fatigued with enjoyment, of which, as I said, the world is only too prodigal. As to what you call its deceit and falsehood, it is perfectly right in not being willing to exchange its graceful and pleasing exterior for one that would be horribly disagreeable. Besides, it does not really lie, it but speaks its own language, a language that we perfectly understand. Society is not selfish and exacting, but you are. Why should you wish to insist upon its changing its charming manners, and adopting your romantic ideas of friendship, of endless love, which would make it stupid, and which it does not care for? Trust yourself to it, enter gaily into its giddy whirl, and it will lighten your burdens, and make your life bright and joyful.