“You never thought so? Surely, she had some charming points, very fine eyes, good hair, she used to dress, and does still dress wonderfully. Nowadays, I quite agree, she’s horrible, but she has been a lovely woman in her time. Not that that made me any less sorry when Charles married her, because it was so unnecessary.” The Duchess had not intended to say anything out of the common, but as M. d’Argencourt began to laugh she repeated these last words—either because she thought them amusing or because she thought it nice of him to laugh—and looked up at him with a coaxing smile, to add the enchantment of her femininity to that of her wit. She went on: “Yes, really, it wasn’t worth the trouble, was it; still, after all, she did have some charm and I can quite understand anybody’s falling in love with her, but if you saw Robert’s girl, I assure you, you’ld simply die of laughter. Oh, I know somebody’s going to quote Augier at me: ‘What matters the bottle so long as one gets drunk?’ Well, Robert may have got drunk, all right, but he certainly hasn’t shewn much taste in his choice of a bottle! First of all, would you believe that she actually expected me to fit up a staircase right in the middle of my drawing-room. Oh, a mere nothing—what?—and she announced that she was going to lie flat on her stomach on the steps. And then, if you’d heard the things she recited, I only remember one scene, but I’m sure nobody could imagine anything like it: it was called the _Seven Princesses_.” “_Seven Princesses!_ Dear, dear, what a snob she must be!” cried M. d’Argencourt. “But, wait a minute, why, I know the whole play. The author sent a copy to the King, who couldn’t understand a word of it and called on me to explain it to him.” “It isn’t by any chance, from the Sar Peladan?” asked the historian of the Fronde, meaning to make a subtle and topical allusion, but in so low a tone that his question passed unnoticed. “So you know the _Seven Princesses_, do you?” replied the Duchess. “I congratulate you! I only know one, but she’s quite enough; I have no wish to make the acquaintance of the other six. If they are all like the one I’ve seen!” “What a goose!” I thought to myself. Irritated by the coldness of her greeting, I found a sort of bitter satisfaction in this proof of her complete inability to understand Maeterlinck. “To think that’s the woman I walk miles every morning to see. Really, I’m too kind. Well, it’s my turn now not to want to see her.” Thus I reasoned with myself; but my words ran counter to my thoughts; they were purely conversational words such as we say to ourselves at those moments when, too much excited to remain quietly alone, we feel the need, for want of another listener, to talk to ourselves, without meaning what we say, as we talk to a stranger.