“No, not that,” he said as he shook his head. “A man’s heart is more complicated than that. After seeing Madam de Bonnivet to her carriage, for she had the audacity, or if you prefer it, the precaution, to come to the rendezvous in her private carriage, I told her in English the astonishing phrase Lord Herbert Bohun used to Madam Éthorel when he had the audacity to make a declaration to her on his second visit, and which is the finest example of insolence and fatuity I know! 'You know I shan’t give you another chance.’ I raised my hat too tranquilly for the fool to think I was sincere. But I was. I lit a cigar, reaching the Boulevard on foot with a quickness which surprised even myself. I made the discovery that not only I did not love this woman, but that she really displeased me. With her a visit to my bachelor’s apartments, the usual theatre of my pleasures, would have been a sport which flattered my vanity without a doubt, but still an unpleasant job. She is, then, quaint and pretentious. Then the image of the other one came into my mind, and this infidelity which I had almost committed against her made her seem adorable by comparison, so adorable that I at once went into a café to write to my pretty Camille a letter of reconciliation. I would have given my author’s fees for that evening for Queen Anne to have seen me, for without a doubt she believed I was in some corner shedding the tears of wounded love and humiliated vanity. That would be like me, would it not?” “Did Mademoiselle Favier answer your note?” I asked. “A six-page letter which is a masterpiece, just like everything she writes to me—five and a half pages to tell me she would never forgive me, and the last half-page to forgive me. It is a classic! But where are you going? I believe you were going to see her.” “I repeat that I was looking for you,” I replied. “I have found you, but what I had to tell you you have found out. You are doing her justice and have done so to the other one. Your lover’s quarrel is over. You are reconciled and happy. There is nothing left for me to do but bless you.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V