permitted to her at the crossing of the ways; she has acquired the
tact by which she finds all the responsive chords in a man's nature,
and skill in judging the sounds which she draws forth. Her silence is
as dangerous as her speech. You will never read her at that age, nor
discover if she is frank or false, nor how far she is serious in her
admissions or merely laughing at you. She gives you the right to
engage in a game of fence with her, and suddenly by a glance, a
gesture of proved potency, she closes the combat and turns from you
with your secret in her keeping, free to offer you up in a jest, free
to interest herself in you, safe alike in her weakness and your
strength.

Although the Marquise d'Aiglemont took up her position upon this
neutral ground during the first interview, she knew how to preserve a
high womanly dignity. The sorrows of which she never spoke seemed to
hang over her assumed gaiety like a light cloud obscuring the sun.
When Vandenesse went out, after a conversation which he had enjoyed
more than he had thought possible, he carried with him the conviction
that this was like to be too costly a conquest for his aspirations.

"It would mean sentiment from here to yonder," he thought, "and
correspondence enough to wear out a deputy second-clerk on his
promotion. And yet if I really cared----"

Luckless phrase that has been the ruin of many an infatuated mortal.
In France the way to love lies through self-love. Charles went back to
Mme. d'Aiglemont, and imagined that she showed symptoms of pleasure in
his conversion. And then, instead of giving himself up like a boy to
the joy of falling in love, he tried to play a double role. He did his
best to act passion and to keep cool enough to analyze the progress of