I longed for the morning to come, that I might question Madame Dupont. I could not tire of smelling Nicette's bouquet and gazing at it in admiration. I looked at the pansies.--"Ah!" I said to myself; "I understand: it was gratitude that prompted the gift. Poor child! she loves her benefactor; that is natural enough; but she is so pretty that she will soon be besieged by lovers, her heart will speak, and she will forget me. That is the way such affairs always end."--I carefully placed my bouquet in water and went to bed. I passed in review the events of the day. Madame de Marsan and Caroline played a large part therein; they were both coquettes--in a different way, to be sure, but it was coquetry all the same. Alas! all the women I had known were coquettes, and I did not honestly believe that any one of them had loved me; at all events, it had been only for a moment. What does a sentiment amount to that has the duration of a mere caprice, and that does not resist the slightest trial? And my sister insisted that I should marry! Why should I hope to find in a wife what I had failed to find in a mistress? Of course, the indissoluble bond, children, duties, the opinion of society, might prevent my wife from being unfaithful to me; but all those things would not revive her love when it was once extinct. "I will not marry," said I to myself; "I will make the most of life."--And yet it had seemed to me for some time, amid all my follies, that I was not perfectly happy. Although fickle, I was sentimental; my heart was constantly looking about for something to attach itself to; it was not its fault that it did not find a heart to respond to it. Of late, I had met none but perfidious, unfaithful women; I used always to take the initiative in the inevitable separation, but the later ones had not given me time; to be sure, I had been foolish enough to put them to the test. I determined to be wiser in future, to take women for what they were, and to thank fortune when I chanced to fall on my feet. Who could say? Perhaps Caroline would love me; perhaps Madame de Marsan would be less coquettish in due time; perhaps the young flowermaker was really virtuous. As for the adventures which Raymond attributed to Madame de Marsan, my neighbor was so evil-tongued that I could not place any reliance on what he said.