women who would be taken in by it: 'Heavens! how he loves me!' they
would say."

Here the marquise gave a forced laugh, and then added, in a tone of
indulgence:--

"If we desire to continue friends let there be no more _mistakes_, of
which it is impossible that I should be the dupe."

"Upon my honor, madame, you are so--far more than you think," replied
Eugene.

"What are you talking about?" asked Monsieur de Listomere, who, for
the last minute, had been listening to the conversation, the meaning
of which he could not penetrate.

"Oh! nothing that would interest you," replied his wife.

Monsieur de Listomere tranquilly returned to the reading of his paper,
and presently said:--

"Ah! Madame de Mortsauf is dead; your poor brother has, no doubt, gone
to Clochegourde."

"Are you aware, monsieur," resumed the marquise, turning to Eugene,
"that what you have just said is a great impertinence?"

"If I did not know the strictness of your principles," he answered,
naively, "I should think that you wished either to give me ideas which
I deny myself, or else to tear a secret from me. But perhaps you are