about with them, ready for need, a little essence of the acid of Malice, to sour in an instant the sugared cream of their loves and their friendships if occasion rise up and the storm-cloud of rivalry loom in the horizon. She was a beauty, Madame la Marquise, and she knew it, as she leaned out over the balcony of her château of Petite Forêt, that lay close to Clagny, under the shadow of the wood of Ville d'Avrée, outside the gates of Versailles, looking down on her bosquets, gardens, and terraces designed by Le Nôtre; for though she was alone, and there was nothing but her little dog Osmin to admire her white skin, and her dark eyes, and her beautiful hands and arms, and her diamond pendants that glittered in the moonlight, she smiled, her flashing triumphant smile, as she whispered to herself, "He is mine--mine! Bah! how can he help himself?" and pressed the ruby agraffe on her bosom with the look of a woman who knew no resistance, and brooked no reluctance to worship at her shrine. Nothing ever opposed Madame la Marquise, and life went smoothly on with her. If Bossuet ever reproved her, it was in those _anathèmes cachés sous des fleurs d'oranger_ in which that politic priest knew how to deal when expedient, however haughty and relentless to the world in general. M. le Marquis was not a savage eccentricity like M. de Pardaillon de Gondran, would never have dreamt of imitating the eccentricity of going into mourning, but if the Bourbon eye _had_ fallen on his wife, would have said, like a loyal peer of France, that all his household treasures were the King's. Disagreeables fled before the scintillations of her smiles, as the crowd fled before her gilded carriage and her Flanders horses; and if ever a little fit of piety once in a while came over her, and Conscience whispered a mal à propos word in her delicate ear, she would give an enamelled lamp to Sainte Marie Réparatrice, by the advice of the Comtesse de Soubise and the Princesse de Monaco (who did such expiatory things themselves, and knew the comfort they afforded), and emerge from her repentance one of the most radiant of all the brilliant butterflies that fluttered their gorgeous wings in the Jardin de Flore under the sunny skies of Versailles.