the Place de Greve?"

"_Aquilina mia_, you have never shown more sense than in this depressing
fit of yours," Euphrasia remarked. "Yes, cashmere, _point d'Alencon_,
perfumes, gold, silks, luxury, everything that sparkles, everything
pleasant, belongs to youth alone. Time alone may show us our folly,
but good fortune will acquit us. You are laughing at me," she went on,
with a malicious glance at the friends; "but am I not right? I would
sooner die of pleasure than of illness. I am not afflicted with a
mania for perpetuity, nor have I a great veneration for human nature,
such as God has made it. Give me millions, and I would squander them;
I should not keep one centime for the year to come. Live to be
charming and have power, that is the decree of my every heartbeat.
Society sanctions my life; does it not pay for my extravagances? Why
does Providence pay me every morning my income, which I spend every
evening? Why are hospitals built for us? And Providence did not put
good and evil on either hand for us to select what tires and pains us.
I should be very foolish if I did not amuse myself."

"And how about others?" asked Emile.

"Others? Oh, well, they must manage for themselves. I prefer laughing
at their woes to weeping over my own. I defy any man to give me the
slightest uneasiness."

"What have you suffered to make you think like this?" asked Raphael.

"I myself have been forsaken for an inheritance," she said, striking
an attitude that displayed all her charms; "and yet I had worked night
and day to keep my lover! I am not to be gulled by any smile or vow,