I returned home tired with a pleasant sort of tiredness, and in all
innocence began describing my sensations to my mother, who was with
me. She checked me with the warning that I must never say such things
to any one but her.

"My dear child," she added, "it needs as much tact to know when to be
silent as when to speak."

This advice brought home to me the nature of the sensations which
ought to be concealed from every one, not excepting perhaps even a
mother. At a glance I measured the vast field of feminine duplicity. I
can assure you, sweetheart, that we, in our unabashed simplicity,
would pass for two very wide-awake little scandal-mongers. What
lessons may be conveyed in a finger on the lips, in a word, a look!
All in a moment I was seized with excessive shyness. What! may I never
again speak of the natural pleasure I feel in the exercise of dancing?
"How then," I said to myself, "about the deeper feelings?"

I went to bed sorrowful, and I still suffer from the shock produced by
this first collision of my frank, joyous nature with the harsh laws of
society. Already the highway hedges are flecked with my white wool!
Farewell, beloved.



V

RENEE DE MAUCOMBE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU
October.