Angelique had to suffer for the faults she was not clever enough to hide.
Unfortunately for her, her income went up and down with the number and
wealth of her admirers, so when she left the court all her possessions
consisted of a few articles she had gathered together out of the wreck of
her former luxury, and these she was now selling one by one to procure
the necessaries of life, while she looked back from afar with an envious
eye at the brilliant world from which she had been exiled, and longed for
better days. All hope was not at an end for her. By a strange law which
does not speak well for human nature, vice finds success easier to attain
than virtue. There is no courtesan, no matter how low she has fallen,
who cannot find a dupe ready to defend against the world an honour of
which no vestige remains. A man who doubts the virtue of the most
virtuous woman, who shows himself inexorably severe when he discovers the
lightest inclination to falter in one whose conduct has hitherto been
above reproach, will stoop and pick up out of the gutter a blighted and
tarnished reputation and protect and defend it against all slights, and
devote his life to the attempt to restore lustre to the unclean thing
dulled by the touch of many fingers. In her days of prosperity Commander
de Jars and the king's treasurer had both fluttered round Mademoiselle de
Guerchi, and neither had fluttered in vain. Short as was the period
necessary to overcome her scruples, in as short a period it dawned on the
two candidates for her favour that each had a successful rival in the
other, and that however potent as a reason for surrender the doubloons of
the treasurer had been, the personal appearance of the commander had
proved equally cogent. As both had felt for her only a passing fancy and
not a serious passion, their explanations with each other led to no
quarrel between them; silently and simultaneously they withdrew from her
circle, without even letting her know they had found her out, but quite
determined to revenge, themselves on her should a chance ever offer.
However, other affairs of a similar nature had intervened to prevent