"'All that you said about my manner of dress impressed me very
much; I began to understand how far above others are those that
come of a noble race. There was still something of the opera girl
in my gowns, in my way of dressing my hair. In a moment I saw the
distance between me and good taste. Next time you will receive a
duchess, you shall not know me again! Ah! how good you have been
to your Claudine! How many and many a time I have thanked you for
telling me those things! What interest lay in those few words! You
have taken thought for that thing belonging to you called
Claudine? _This_ imbecile would never have opened my eyes; he
thinks that everything I do is right; and besides, he is much too
humdrum, too matter-of-fact to have any feeling for the beautiful.

"'Tuesday is very slow of coming for my impatient mind! On
Tuesday I shall be with you for several hours. Ah! when it comes I
will try to think that the hours are months, that it will be so
always. I am living in hope of that morning now, as I shall live
upon the memory of it afterwards. Hope is memory that craves; and
recollection, memory sated. What a beautiful life within life
thought makes for us in this way!

"'Sometimes I dream of inventing new ways of tenderness all my
own, a secret which no other woman shall guess. A cold sweat
breaks out over me at the thought that something may happen to
prevent this morning. Oh, I would break with _him_ for good, if
need was, but nothing here could possibly interfere; it would be
from your side. Perhaps you may decide to go out, perhaps to go to
see some other woman. Oh! spare me this Tuesday for pity's sake.
If you take it from me, Charles, you do not know what _he_ will