One day in July Rousseau went to pay his accustomed visit. He found Madame d'Houdetot dejected, and with the flush of recent weeping on her cheeks. A bird of the air had carried the matter. As usual, the matter was carried wrongly, and apparently all that Saint Lambert suspected was that Rousseau's high principles had persuaded Madame d'Houdetot of the viciousness of her relations with her lover.[277] "They have played us an evil turn," cried Madame d'Houdetot; "they have been unjust to me, but that is no matter. Either let us break off at once, or be what you ought to be."[278] This was Rousseau's first taste of the ashes of shame into which the lusciousness of such forbidden fruit, plucked at the expense of others, is ever apt to be transformed. Mortification of the considerable spiritual pride that was yet alive after this lapse, was a strong element in the sum of his emotion, and it was pointed by the reflection which stung him so incessantly, that his monitress was younger than himself. He could never master his own contempt for the gallantry of grizzled locks.[279] His austerer self might at any rate have been consoled by knowing that this scene was the beginning of the end, though the end came without any seeking on his part and without violence. To his amazement, one day Saint Lambert and Madame d'Houdetot came to the Hermitage, asking him to give them dinner, and much to the credit of human nature's elasticity, the three passed a delightful afternoon. The wronged lover was friendly, though a little stiff, and he passed occasional slights which Rousseau would surely not have forgiven, if he had not been disarmed by consciousness of guilt. He fell asleep, as we can well imagine that he might do, while Rousseau read aloud his very inadequate justification of Providence against Voltaire.[280]