de
Chalusse."
"Oh! madame----"
"Tut! tut! my dear, I know what I am talking about. Wait until
you have been introduced into society before you boast of the
charms of solitude. Poor dear! I doubt if you have ever attended
a ball in your whole life. No! I was sure of it, and you are
twenty! Fortunately, I am here. I will take your mother's place,
and we will make up for lost time! Beautiful as you are, my child--
for you are divinely beautiful--you will reign as a queen
wherever you appear. Doesn't that thought make that cold little
heart of yours throb more quickly? Ah! fetes and music, wonderful
toilettes and the flashing of diamonds, the admiration of
gentlemen, the envy of rivals, the consciousness of one's own
beauty, are these delights not enough to fill any woman's life? It
is intoxication, perhaps, but an intoxication which is happiness."
Was she sincere, or did she hope to dazzle this lonely girl, and
then rule her through the tastes she might succeed in giving her?
As is not unfrequently the case with callous natures, Madame de
Fondege was a compound of frankness and cunning. What she was
saying now she really meant; and as it was to her interest to say
it, she urged her opinions boldly and even eloquently. Twenty-
four hours earlier, proud and truthful Marguerite would have
silenced her at once. She would have told her that such pleasures
could never have any charm for her, and that she felt only scorn
and disgust for such worthless aims and sordid desires.
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