Chapter 26 - Page 2

awaited this signal to discharge her shaft, Marguerite
exclaimed, "Well, Elise, it is said you are in love." And she looked
fixedly at Madame de Belliere, who blushed against her will.

"Women can never escape slander," replied the marquise, after a moment's
pause.

"No one slanders you, Elise."

"What! - people say that I am in love, and yet they do not slander me!"

"In the first place, if it be true, it is no slander, but simply a
scandal-loving report. In the next place - for you did not allow me to
finish what I was saying - the public does not assert that you have
abandoned yourself to this passion. It represents you, on the contrary,
as a virtuous but loving woman, defending yourself with claws and teeth,
shutting yourself up in your own house as in a fortress; in other
respects, as impenetrable as that of Danae, notwithstanding Danae's tower
was made of brass."

"You are witty, Marguerite," said Madame de Belliere, angrily.

"You always flatter me, Elise. In short, however, you are reported to be
incorruptible and unapproachable. You cannot decide whether the world is
calumniating you or not; but what is it you are musing about while I am
speaking to you?"

"I?"

"Yes; you are blushing and do not answer me."

"I was trying," said the marquise, raising her beautiful eyes brightened
with an indication of growing temper, "I was trying to discover to what
you could possibly have alluded, you who are so learned in mythological
subjects, in comparing me to Danae."

"You were trying to guess that?" said Marguerite, laughing.

"Yes; do you not remember that at the convent, when we were solving our
problems in arithmetic - ah! what I have to tell you is learned also, but
it is my turn - do you not remember, that if one of the terms were given,
we were to find the other? Therefore do _you_ guess now?"

"I cannot conjecture what you mean."

"And yet nothing is more simple. You pretend that I am in love, do you
not?"

"So it is said."

"Very well; it is not said, I suppose, that I am in love with an
abstraction. There must surely be a name mentioned in this report."

"Certainly, a name is mentioned."

"Very well; it is not surprising, then, that I should try to guess this
name, since you do not tell it."

"My dear marquise, when I saw you blush, I did not think you would have
to spend much time in conjectures."

"It was the word Danae which you used that surprised me. Danae means a
shower of gold, does it not?"

"That is to say that the Jupiter of Danae changed himself into a shower
of gold for her."

"My lover, then, he whom you assign me - "

"I beg your pardon; I am your friend, and