_La Comtesse._--"You were wrong. When we indulge our coquetry to satisfy our vanity, we ought to be willing to put up with the consequences." _Lady B._--"To satisfy our vanity! How do you mean?" _La Comtesse_ (_smiling_).--"Come now, I appeal to you: is it simply to be a little cooler that we have our bodies cut low?" _Lady B._--"No, of course not; we like to be _décolletées_, because it is the fashion; because, if we did not, we should appear ridiculously prudish and outlandish. Alas! we are the slaves of fashion!" _La Comtesse._--"My dear, if your form resembled the poor little Baronne de S.'s, do you believe that any fashion in the world would make you wear a low-necked dress?... You would soon reconcile to yourself the thought of appearing prudish, ridiculous, and outlandish." _Lady B._--"Then you excuse those two impertinent creatures?" _La Comtesse._--"I am almost inclined to do so. I do not see why a man should not take a pleasure in looking at that which it seems to give us pleasure to show." _Lady B._--"Well, I can only tell you that such a thing would never have happened to me in England." _La Comtesse._--"I can quite believe that. I have seen your countrymen look at Vesuvius as unmoved as if they had been looking at the chimneys of St. Etienne or Birmingham.... Besides, my dear, had you not a fan with you to protect you?" _Lady B._--"I have taken note of what you said just now, you know; that if women are coquettish, it is to satisfy their vanity. Perhaps you will succeed in explaining to me why there are women who carry their coquetry as far as _la galanterie_?" _La Comtesse_ (_seriously_).--"A coquette satisfies her own vanity; a woman who misconducts herself satisfies the vanity of a man. She is a fool." _Lady B._--"Ah! that is better (_a few moments' silence_). By the bye, have you seen Lady G. lately? Poor little woman! is she not an inconsolable widow?..." _La Comtesse._--"I saw her last Tuesday. I found her better ... she was beginning to be a little more reasonable." _Lady B._--"I saw her the day after Lord G.'s death. She was in a pitiable state." _La Comtesse._--"So did I; but that was nothing ... it was on the day itself that you should have seen her.... She was beside herself ... she had completely lost her reason.... You should have heard her reciting the litany of her husband's good qualities. What qualities, what virtues people discover in their dead relatives, to be sure: did it never strike you so?... They say Lord G. has left her all his fortune, at least all that he could leave her.... It is no light matter being left a widow in England: ... your husbands are very shrewd, do you know! English wives have a great interest in taking every care of their husbands." _Lady B._--"Such is not Lady G.'s case, however. Her husband leaves her his fortune on condition she remains a widow. If she re-marries, she loses all her rights."