Suddenly, as if the two beauties had
the same thought, they began to tease their solitary knight in a
playful way, and were soon vying with each other in the jesting
attention which they paid to him; this unanimity of action left them
free. At the end of half an hour, the two women, already secret
enemies, were apparently the best of friends. The young man then
discovered that he felt as angry with Mademoiselle de Verneuil for her
friendliness and freedom as he had been with her reserve. In fact, he
was so annoyed by it that he regretted, with a sort of dumb anger,
having allowed her to breakfast with them.
"Madame," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, "is your son always as gloomy
as he is at this moment?"
"Mademoiselle," he replied, "I ask myself what is the good of a
fleeting happiness. The secret of my gloom is the evanescence of my
pleasure."
"That is a madrigal," she said, laughing, "which rings of the Court
rather than the Polytechnique."
"My son only expressed a very natural thought, mademoiselle," said
Madame du Gua, who had her own reasons for placating the stranger.
"Then laugh while you may," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, smiling at
the young man. "How do you look when you have really something to weep
for, if what you are pleased to call a happiness makes you so dismal?"
This smile, accompanied by a provoking glance which destroyed the
consistency of her reserve, revived the youth's feelings.
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