In the course of an hour’s tete-a-tete, on a corner sofa, under the eyes of the world, the Duchess brought young d’Esgrignon as far as Scipio’s Generosity, the Devotion of Amadis, and Chivalrous Self-abnegation (for the Middle Ages were just coming into fashion, with their daggers, machicolations, hauberks, chain-mail, peaked shoes, and romantic painted card-board properties). She had an admirable turn, moreover, for leaving things unsaid, for leaving ideas in a discreet, seeming careless way, to work their way down, one by one, into Victurnien’s heart, like needles into a cushion. She possessed a marvelous skill in reticence; she was charming in hypocrisy, lavish of subtle promises, which revived hope and then melted away like ice in the sun if you looked at them closely, and most treacherous in the desire which she felt and inspired. At the close of this charming encounter she produced the running noose of an invitation to call, and flung it over him with a dainty demureness which the printed page can never set forth. “You will forget me,” she said. “You will find so many women eager to pay court to you instead of enlightening you.... But you will come back to me undeceived. Are you coming to me first?... No. As you will.--For my own part, I tell you frankly that your visits will be a great pleasure to me. People of soul are so rare, and I think that you are one of them.--Come, good-bye; people will begin to talk about us if we talk together any longer.” She made good her words and took flight. Victurnien went soon afterwards, but not before others had guessed his ecstatic condition; his face wore the expression peculiar to happy men, something between an Inquisitor’s calm discretion and the self-contained beatitude of a devotee, fresh from the confessional and absolution. “Mme. de Maufrigneuse went pretty briskly to the point this evening,” said the Duchesse de Grandlieu, when only half-a-dozen persons were left in Mlle. des Touches’ little drawing-room--to wit, des Lupeaulx, a Master of Requests, who at that time stood very well at court, Vandenesse, the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, Canalis, and Mme. de Serizy. “D’Esgrignon and Maufrigneuse are two names that are sure to cling together,” said Mme. de Serizy, who aspired to epigram. “For some days past she has been out at grass on Platonism,” said des Lupeaulx. “She will ruin that poor innocent,” added Charles de Vandenesse. “What do you mean?” asked Mlle. des Touches. “Oh, morally and financially, beyond all doubt,” said the Vicomtesse, rising. The cruel words were cruelly true for young d’Esgrignon.