“Certainly; he, as well as everyone else. What! have I not said that I admit he possesses a certain superiority, and would not that be enough? My dear child, a woman is a queen during the entire period nature permits her to enjoy sovereign power—from fifteen to thirty-five years of age. After that, we are free to have a heart, when we only have that left—”
“Oh, oh!” murmured La Vallière.
“Excellent,” cried Montalais; “a very masterly woman; Athenaïs, you will make your way in the world.”
“Do you not approve of what I say?”
“Completely,” replied her laughing companion.
“You are not serious, Montalais?” said Louise.
“Yes, yes; I approve everything Athenaïs has just said; only—”
“Only what?”
“Well, I cannot carry it out. I have the firmest principles; I form resolutions beside which the laws of the Stadtholder and of the King of Spain are child’s play; but when the moment arrives to put them into execution, nothing comes of them.”
“Your courage fails?” said Athenaïs, scornfully.
“Miserably so.”
“Great weakness of nature,” returned Athenaïs. “But at least you make a choice.”
“Why, no. It pleases fate to disappoint me in everything; I dream of emperors, and I find only—”
“Aure, Aure!” exclaimed La Vallière, “for pity’s sake, do not, for the pleasure of saying something witty, sacrifice those who love you with such devoted affection.”
“Oh, I do not trouble myself much about that; those who love me are sufficiently happy that I do not dismiss them altogether. So much the worse for myself if I have a weakness for anyone, but so much the worse for others if I revenge myself upon them for it.”
“You are right,” said Athenaïs, “and, perhaps, you too will reach the goal. In other words, young ladies, that is termed being a coquette. Men, who are very silly in most things, are particularly so in confounding, under the term of coquetry, a woman’s pride, and love of changing her sentiments as she does her dress. I, for instance, am proud; that is to say, impregnable. I treat my admirers harshly, but without any pretention to retain them. Men call me a coquette, because they are vain enough to think I care for them. Other women—Montalais, for instance—have allowed themselves to be influenced by flattery; they would be lost were it not for that most fortunate principle of instinct which urges them to change suddenly, and punish the man whose devotion they so recently accepted.”
“A very learned dissertation,” said Montalais, in the tone of thorough enjoyment.
“It is odious!” murmured Louise.
“Thanks to that sort of coquetry, for, indeed, that is genuine coquetry,” continued Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente; “the lover who, a little while since, was puffed up with pride, in a minute afterwards is suffering at every pore of his vanity and self-esteem. He was, perhaps, already beginning to assume the airs of a conqueror, but now he retreats defeated; he was about to assume an air of protection towards us, but he is obliged to prostrate himself once more. The result of all this is, that, instead of having a husband who is jealous and troublesome, free from restraint in his conduct towards us, we have a lover always trembling in our presence, always fascinated by our attractions, always submissive; and for this simple reason, that he finds the same woman never twice of the same mind. Be convinced, therefore, of the advantages of coquetry. Possessing that, one reigns a queen among women in cases where Providence has withheld that precious faculty of holding one’s heart and mind in check.”
“How clever you are,” said Montalais, “and how well you understand the duty women owe themselves!”
“I am only settling a case of individual happiness,” said Athenaïs modestly; “and defending myself, like all weak, loving dispositions, against the oppressions of the stronger.”
“La Vallière does not say a word.”
“Does she not approve of what we are saying?”
“Nay; only I do not understand it,” said Louise. “You talk like people not called upon to live in this world of ours.”
“And very pretty your world is,” said Montalais.
“A world,” returned Athenaïs, “in which men worship a woman until she has fallen—and insult her when she has fallen.”
“Who spoke to you of falling?” said Louise.
“Yours is a new theory, then; will you tell us how you intend to resist yielding to temptation, if you allow yourself to be hurried away by feelings of affection?”
“Oh!” exclaimed the young girl, raising towards the dark heavens her beautiful large eyes filled with tears, “if you did but know what a heart is, I would explain, and convince you; a loving heart is stronger than all your coquetry, more powerful than all your pride. A woman is never truly loved, I believe; a man never loves with idolatry, unless he feels sure he is loved in return. Let old men, whom we read of in comedies, fancy themselves adored by coquettes. A young man is conscious of, and knows them; if he has a fancy, or a strong desire, or an absorbing passion, for a coquette, he cannot mistake her; a coquette may drive him out of his senses, but will never make him fall in love. Love, such as I conceive it to be, is an incessant, complete, and perfect sacrifice; but it is not the sacrifice of one only of the two persons thus united. It is the perfect abnegation of two who are desirous of blending their beings into one. If ever I love, I shall implore my lover to leave me free and pure; I will tell him, and he will understand, that my heart was torn by my refusal, and he, in his love for me, aware of the magnitude of my sacrifice—he, in his turn, I say, will store his devotion for me—will respect me, and will not seek my ruin, to insult me when I shall have fallen, as you said just now, whilst uttering your blasphemies against love, such as I understand it. That is my idea of love. And now you will tell me, perhaps, that
