"So you will go down in your little spinning-toilette, _mimi_? I fancy you look as Joan of Arc did, when she was keeping her sheep at Domremy. Go, and God bless thee!" and Madame de Frontignac pushed her playfully forward. Mary entered the room where Burr was seated, and wished him good-morning, in a serious and placid manner, in which there was not the slightest trace of embarrassment or discomposure. "Shall I have the pleasure of seeing your fair companion this morning?" said Burr, after some moments of indifferent conversation. "No, Sir; Madame de Frontignac desires me to excuse her to you." "Is she ill?" said Burr, with a look of concern. "No, Mr. Burr, she prefers not to see you." Burr gave a start of well-bred surprise, and Mary added, "Madame de Frontignac has made me familiar with the history of your acquaintance with her; and you will therefore understand what I mean, Mr. Burr, when I say, that, during the time of her stay with us, we should prefer not to receive calls from you." "Your language, Miss Scudder, has certainly the merit of explicitness." "I intend it shall have, Sir," said Mary, tranquilly; "half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly and in a spirit of love." "I am gratified that you add the last clause, Miss Scudder; I might not otherwise recognize the gentle being whom I have always regarded as the impersonation of all that is softest in woman. I have not the honor of understanding in the least the reason of this apparently capricious sentence, but I bow to it in submission." "Mr. Burr," said Mary, walking up to him, and looking him full in the eyes, with an energy that for the moment bore down his practised air of easy superiority, "I wish to speak to you for a moment, as one immortal soul should to another, without any of those false glosses and deceits which men call ceremony and good manners. You have done a very great injury to a lovely lady, whose weakness ought to have been sacred in your eyes. Precisely because you are what you are,--strong, keen, penetrating, and able to control and govern all who come near you,--because you have the power to make yourself agreeable, interesting, fascinating, and to win esteem and love,--just for that reason you ought to hold yourself the guardian of every woman, and treat her as you would wish any man to treat your own daughter. I leave it to your conscience, whether this is the manner in which you have treated Madame de Frontignac." "Upon my word, Miss Scudder," began Burr, "I cannot imagine what representations our mutual friend may have been making. I assure you, our intercourse has been as irreproachable as the most scrupulous could desire."