"Paris is the most delicious of places to visit--the worst of places
to live in.

"Understand well, my mother, that in seeking by what qualifies I can
best attract my husband--who is the best of men, doubtless, but of
Parisian men nevertheless--I have continually reflected on merits
which may be seen at once, which do not require time to be
appreciated.

"Finally, I do not deny that all this is miserable cynicism,
unworthy of you and of myself; for you know I am not at heart a bad
little woman. Certainly, if I could keep Monsieur de Camors for a
year or two at an old chateau in the midst of a solitary wood, I
should like it much. I could then see him more frequently, I could
then become familiar with his august person, and could develop my
little talents under his charmed eyes. But then this might weary
him and would be too easy. Life and happiness, I know, are not so
easily managed. All is difficulty, peril, and conflict.

"What joy, then, to conquer! And I swear to you, my mother, that I
will conquer! I will force him to know me as you know me; to love
me, not as he now does, but as you do, for many good reasons of
which he does not yet dream.

"Not that he believes me absolutely a fool; I think he has abandoned
that idea for at least two days past.

"How he came thus to think, my next letter shall explain.