Then, with an accent of sincerity:

"I can not understand how a man ever makes up his mind to marry; nor how
a woman, after she has reached an age when she knows what she is doing,
can commit that folly."

The Prince looked at her with distrust. He was clever, but he was
incapable of conceiving that one might talk without an object,
disinterestedly, and to express general ideas. He imagined that Countess
Martin-Belleme was suggesting to him projects that she wished him to
consider. And as he was thinking of defending himself and also avenging
himself, he made velvet eyes at her and talked with tender gallantry:

"You display, Madame, the pride of the beautiful and intelligent French
women whom subjection irritates. French women love liberty, and none of
them is as worthy of liberty as you. I have lived in France a little.
I have known and admired the elegant society of Paris, the salons, the
festivals, the conversations, the plays. But in our mountains, under our
olive-trees, we become rustic again. We assume golden-age manners, and
marriage is for us an idyl full of freshness."

Vivian Bell examined the statuette which Dechartre had left on the table.

"Oh! it was thus that Beatrice looked, I am sure. And do you know,
Monsieur Dechartre, there are wicked men who say that Beatrice never
existed?"

Choulette declared he wished to be counted among those wicked men.
He did not believe that Beatrice had any more reality than other ladies
through whom ancient poets who sang of love represented some scholastic