be nothing if he could make you happy.--Do not you see how aged he is?
The man must have been ill; he is making the most of what is left him.
In three years he will be a wreck. Then he will be ambitious; perhaps
he may succeed. I do not think so.--What is he? A man of intrigue, who
may have the business faculty to perfection, and be able to gossip
agreeably; but he is too presumptuous to have any sterling merit; he
will not go far. Besides--only look at him. Is it not written on his
brow that, at this very moment, what he sees in you is not a young and
pretty woman, but the two million francs you possess? He does not love
you, my dear; he is reckoning you up as if you were an investment. If
you are bent on marrying, find an older man who has an assured
position and is half-way on his career. A widow's marriage ought not
to be a trivial love affair. Is a mouse to be caught a second time in
the same trap? A new alliance ought now to be a good speculation on
your part, and in marrying again you ought at least to have a hope of
being some day addressed as Madame la Marechale!"

As she spoke, both women naturally fixed their eyes on Colonel
Montcornet's handsome face.

"If you would rather play the delicate part of a flirt and not marry
again," the Duchess went on, with blunt good-nature; "well! my poor
child, you, better than any woman, will know how to raise the
storm-clouds and disperse them again. But, I beseech you, never make
it your pleasure to disturb the peace of families, to destroy unions,
and ruin the happiness of happy wives. I, my dear, have played that
perilous game. Dear heaven! for a triumph of vanity some poor virtuous
soul is murdered--for there really are virtuous women, child,--and we
may make ourselves mortally hated. I learned, a little too late, that,
as the Duc d'Albe once said, one salmon is worth a thousand frogs! A