“It is not quite as simple as all that,” he replied without getting angry; “I amused myself with Queen Anne, but not in the way you think. The beater placed us side by side at the table. I should like you to have been there in hiding listening to us. The conversation was sweet, simple, friendly and melting, the meeting of two beautiful souls. She spoke well of all the women we knew, and I spoke well of all my colleagues. We declared in agreement that the great awkward Madam de Sauve has never had a lover, and that Dorsenne’s novels are his masterpieces, that the demon Madam Moraines is an angel of disinterestedness, and that the noodle, René Vincy is a great poet. Judge of our sincerity. It was as if neither she nor I had ever suspected that one writer could slander another, that a woman of the world could commit adultery. We have taken our revenge since, and we are at this moment in that state of bitter warfare which is disguised by the pretty name of flirtation. I spare you the details. It is sufficient to know that she is aware that little Favier is my mistress; she thinks I am madly in love with her, and her sole aim is to steal me from her. Accustomed as she is to masculine ruses, she has laid the snare which has always been successful since the earth has revolved around the sun: there is no virtue like the sensation of stealing a love from another woman. The most curious thing is that Queen Anne might easily have been virtuous. Oh, she is very fast. But I should not be surprised to hear that she has never had a real lover. Besides, if she had had twenty-five lovers her scheme would still have succeeded. I would wager that in the earthly paradise the serpent only told our mother Eve that he was about to pluck the apple for the female of his own species.” “But what of Camille Favier?” I asked. “Naturally she guessed or else I told her—I don’t know how to lie—so she is no less jealous of Bonnivet than Bonnivet is of her. I have not been bored for the last week or two I can assure you. Things have moved quickly, and the rapid are just as successful in gallantry as in everything else.” We were having dessert, and he was balancing a piece of pear on the end of his dessert fork as he concluded his confidence with this brutal cruelty which made me say— “You are between two women again? You are playing a dangerous game.” “Dangerous?” he interrupted with his confident joviality. “To whom? To me? Happily or unhappily, I am insured against these fires. To Madam de Bonnivet? If she does not love me, what risk does she run? If she loves me, she will be grateful. Suffering requires feeling, and to women of this kind that is everything. But I think she is as hard as I am. As for Camille, it will develop her talent.” “Suppose one of the lady admirers of the novels of your second period, _Anciennes Amours_ or _Martyre Intime_, were to hear you now?” I said to him. “For this is quite the reverse of what you put in those two books.”