doing, and though they had been directed against me, I could not help
feeling thankful to her--to such an extent do I hate fools, whom I have
ever found in this world more pernicious than wicked people. The result
was, that with the feeling of repulsion and contempt with which the
extravagantly worldly woman inspired me, there was henceforth mingled a
shade of gentle pity for the badly brought-up child and the misdirected
woman.

Women are prompt in catching delicate shades of feeling, and the latter
did not escape Madame de Palme. She became vaguely conscious of a slightly
favorable change in my opinion of her, and it was not long before she even
began to exaggerate its extent and to attempt abusing it. For two days she
pursued me with her keenest shafts, which I bore good-naturedly, and to
which I even responded with some little attentions, for I had still at
heart the rude expressions of my dialogue with Madame de Malouet, and I
did not think I had sufficiently expiated them by the feeble martyrdom I
had undergone the following day in common with the beautiful Malabar
Widow.

This was enough to cause Madame Bathilde de Palme to imagine that she
could treat me as a conquered province, and add Ulysses to his companions.
Day before yesterday she had tested several times during the day the
extent of her growing power over my heart and my will, by asking two or
three little services of me; services to the honor of which every one here
eagerly aspires, and which for my part, I discharged politely but with
evident coolness.

In spite of the extreme reserve with which I had lent myself to these
trials during the day, Madame de Palme believed in her complete success;
she hastily judged that she now had but to rivet my chains and bind me to