Paris cares to take what other women have passed over. The dread
of being taken for a fool is the source of the coxcomb's bragging

so common in France; for in France to have the reputation of a
fool is to be a foreigner in one's own country. Vehement desire

seized on M. de Montriveau, desire that had gathered strength
from the heat of the desert and the first stirrings of a heart

unknown as yet in its suppressed turbulence.
A strong man, and violent as he was strong, he could keep mastery

over himself; but as he talked of indifferent things, he retired
within himself, and swore to possess this woman, for through that

thought lay the only way to love for him. Desire became a solemn
compact made with himself, an oath after the manner of the Arabs

among whom he had lived; for among them a vow is a kind of
contract made with Destiny a man's whole future is solemnly

pledged to fulfil it, and everything even his own death, is
regarded simply as a means to the one end.

A younger man would have said to himself, "I should very much
like to have the Duchess for my mistress!" or, "If the Duchesse

de Langeais cared for a man, he would be a very lucky rascal!"
But the General said, "I will have Mme de Langeais for my

mistress." And if a man takes such an idea into his head when
his heart has never been touched before, and love begins to be a

kind of religion with him, he little knows in what a hell he has
set his foot.

Armand de Montriveau suddenly took flight and went home in the
first hot fever-fit of the first love that he had known. When a

man has kept all his boyish beliefs, illusions, frankness, and
impetuosity into middle age, his first impulse is, as it were, to

stretch out a hand to take the thing that he desires; a little
later he realises that there is a gulf set between them, and that

it is all but impossible to cross it. A sort of childish
impatience seizes him, he wants the thing the more, and trembles

or cries. Wherefore, the next day, after the stormiest
reflections that had yet perturbed his mind, Armand de Montriveau

discovered that he was under the yoke of the senses, and his
bondage made the heavier by his love.

The woman so cavalierly treated in his thoughts of yesterday had
become a most sacred and dreadful power. She was to be his

world, his life, from this time forth. The greatest joy, the
keenest anguish, that he had yet known grew colourless before the

bare recollection of the least sensation stirred in him by her.
The swiftest revolutions in a man's outward life only touch his

interests, while passion brings a complete revulsion of feeling.
And so in those who live by feeling, rather than by

self-interest, the doers rather than the reasoners, the sanguine
rather than the lymphatic temperaments, love works a complete

revolution. In a flash, with one single reflection, Armand de
Montriveau wiped out his whole past life.

A score of times he asked himself, like a boy, "Shall I go, or
shall I not?" and then at last he dressed, came to the Hotel de

Langeais towards eight o'clock that evening, and was admitted.
He was to see the woman--ah! not the woman--the idol that he had

seen yesterday, among lights, a fresh innocent girl in gauze and
silken lace and veiling. He burst in upon her to declare his

love, as if it were a question of firing the first shot on a
field of battle.

Poor novice! He found his ethereal sylphide shrouded in a brown
cashmere dressing-gown ingeniously befrilled, lying languidly

stretched out upon a sofa in a dimly lighted boudoir. Mme de
Langeais did not so much as rise, nothing was visible of her but

her face, her hair was loose but confined by a scarf. A hand
indicated a seat, a hand that seemed white as marble to

Montriveau by the flickering light of a single candle at the
further side of the room, and a voice as soft as the light said--

"If it had been anyone else, M. le Marquis, a friend with whom I
could dispense with ceremony, or a mere acquaintance in whom I

felt but slight interest, I should have closed my door. I am
exceedingly unwell."

"I will go," Armand said to himself.
"But I do not know how it is," she continued (and the simple

warrior attributed the shining of her eyes to fever), "perhaps
it was a presentiment of your kind visit (and no one can be more

sensible of the prompt attention than I), but the vapours have
left my head."

"Then may I stay?"
"Oh, I should be very sorry to allow you to go. I told myself

this morning that it was impossible that I should have made the
slightest impression on your mind, and that in all probability

you took my request for one of the commonplaces of which
Parisians are lavish on every occasion. And I forgave your

ingratitude in advance. An explorer from the deserts is not
supposed to know how exclusive we are in our friendships in the

Faubourg."
The gracious, half-murmured words dropped one by one, as if they

had been weighted with the gladness that apparently brought them
to her lips. The Duchess meant to have the full benefit of her

headache, and her speculation was fully successful. The General,
poor man, was really distressed by the lady's simulated distress.

Like Crillon listening to the story of the Crucifixion, he was
ready to draw his sword against the vapours. How could a man

dare to speak just then to this suffering woman of the love that
she inspired? Armand had already felt that it would be absurd to

fire off a declaration of love point-blank at one so far above
other women. With a single thought came understanding of the

delicacies of feeling, of the soul's requirements. To love: what
was that but to know how to plead, to beg for alms, to wait? And

as for the love that he felt, must he not prove it? His tongue
was mute, it was frozen by the conventions of the noble Faubourg,

the majesty of a sick headache, the bashfulness of love. But no
power on earth could veil his glances; the heat and the Infinite

of the desert blazed in eyes calm as a panther's, beneath the
lids that fell so seldom. The Duchess enjoyed the steady gaze

that enveloped her in light and warmth.
"Mme la Duchesse," he answered, "I am afraid I express my

gratitude for your goodness very badly. At this moment I have
but one desire--I wish it were in my power to cure the pain."

"Permit me to throw this off, I feel too warm now," she said,
gracefully tossing aside a cushion that covered her feet.

"Madame, in Asia your feet would be worth some ten thousand
sequins.

"A traveller's compliment!" smiled she.
It pleased the sprightly lady to involve a rough soldier in a

labyrinth of nonsense, commonplaces, and meaningless talk, in
which he manoeuvred, in military language, as Prince Charles

might have done at close quarters with Napoleon. She took a
mischievous amusement in reconnoitring the extent of his

infatuation by the number of foolish speeches extracted from a
novice whom she led step by step into a hopeless maze, meaning to

leave him there in confusion. She began by laughing at him, but
nevertheless it pleased her to make him forget how time went.

The length of a first visit is frequently a compliment, but
Armand was innocent of any such intent. The famous explorer

spent an hour in chat on all sorts of subjects, said nothing that
he meant to say, and was feeling that he was only an instrument

on whom this woman played, when she rose, sat upright, drew the
scarf from her hair, and wrapped it about her throat, leant her

elbow on the cushions, did him the honour of a complete cure, and
rang for lights. The most gracefulmovement succeeded to

complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom she
had just extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her

deeply, and said--
"You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that

you have never loved. It is a man's great pretension with us.