This silence was the more impossible as after our greeting I held out to Jacques Madam de Bonnivet’s invitation. “Were you the cause of this being sent to me?” I asked him. “Who will be present at this dinner? What answer shall I give?” “I?” he said, after reading the letter, unable to conceal his astonishment. “No. I had nothing to do with it. You must accept for two reasons: first because it will amuse you, and then you, by doing so, will be rendering me a real service.” “You a service?” “Yes. It is very simple,” he replied, a little impatient at my stupidity. “You don’t understand that Madam de Bonnivet has invited you because she hopes to find out from you my actual relations with Camille Favier? It is a little ruse. As a matter of fact, you have deserted me again and are not up-to-date. But you know me well enough to be sure that I have not let the week pass without manœuvring skilfully in the little war which Queen Anne and myself are waging! I say skilfully, but it is merely working a scheme, the foundation of which never varies. Mine has progressed in the way I told you, by persuading the lady more and more that I have a profound passion for little Camille. There is no need for me to tell you my various stratagems, the simplest of which has been to behave with Camille as if I really loved her. But Queen Anne is clever, and is studying my play. I have only to make one slip and my plan will fail.” “Come. I don’t understand you. One fact is that you are courting Madam de Bonnivet. You talk to her about your passion for little Favier; that is another fact. How do you manage that? For to pay court to one is not to have a passion for the other?” “But, my dear fellow,” he interrupted, “you forget the remorse and the temptation. I am not paying court to Queen Anne, I am arranging to do so. Have you ever kept a dog? Yes. Then you have seen it, when you were at table enjoying a cutlet, look at you and the bone with eyes in which the honest sentiments of duty and the gluttonous appetite of the carnivorous animal were striving for mastery? Ah, well, I have those eyes for Queen Anne at each new ruse she employs to arouse my desire for her beauty. The man being superior to the dog in virtue, sir, and in self-control, duty carries him away. I leave her quickly like some one who does not wish to succumb to temptation. Stop, shall I give you an illustration? Take, for example, yesterday; we were in a carriage in the fog; it was what I call a nice little adultery fog. Madam de Bonnivet and I had met in a curiosity shop, where she had gone to buy tapestry, and so had I. What luck! She offered me a lift.” “In her own carriage?” I asked.