her relations and St. Germain, whose wild talk amused me, I should prefer
her to invite no company. St. Germain often dined with the best society
in the capital, but he never ate anything, saying that he was kept alive
by mysterious food known only to himself. One soon got used to his
eccentricities, but not to his wonderful flow of words which made him the
soul of whatever company he was in.

By this time I had fathomed all the depths of Madame d'Urfe's character.
She firmly believed me to be an adept of the first order, making use of
another name for purposes of my own; and five or six weeks later she was
confirmed in this wild idea on her asking me if I had diciphered the
manuscript which pretended to explain the Magnum Opus.

"Yes," said I, "I have deciphered it, and consequently read it, and I now
beg to return it you with my word of honour that I have not made a copy;
in fact, I found nothing in it that I did not know before."

"Without the key you mean, but of course you could never find out that."

"Shall I tell you the key?"

"Pray do so."

I gave her the word, which belonged to no language that I know of, and
the marchioness was quite thunderstruck.

"This is too amazing," said she; "I thought myself the sole possessor of
that mysterious word--for I had never written it down, laying it up in my
memory--and I am sure I have never told anyone of it."