In the course of three evenings Madame Schontz read Fabien like a book
and said to herself,--

"If Couture does not suit me, I am certain of saddling that one. My
future can go on two legs now."

This queer fellow whom everybody laughed at was really the chosen one,
--chosen, however, with an intention which made such preference
insulting. The choice escaped all public suspicion by its very
improbability. Madame Schontz intoxicated Fabien with smiles given
secretly, with little scenes played on the threshold when she bade him
good-night, if Monsieur de Rochefide stayed behind. She often made
Fabien a third with Arthur in her opera-box and at first
representations; this she excused by saying he had done her such or
such a service and she did not know how else to repay him. Men have a
natural conceit as common to them as to women,--that of being loved
exclusively. Now of all flattering passions there is none more prized
than that of a Madame Schontz, for the man she makes the object of a
love she calls "from the heart," in distinction from another sort of
love. A woman like Madame Schontz, who plays the great lady, and whose
intrinsic value is real, was sure to be an object of pride to Fabien,
who fell in love with her to the point of never presenting himself
before her eyes except in full dress, varnished boots, lemon-kid
gloves, embroidered shirt and frill, waistcoat more or less
variegated,--in short, with all the external symptoms of profound
worship.

A month before the conference of the duchess and her confessor, Madame
Schontz had confided the secret of her birth and her real name to
Fabien, who did not in the least understand the motive of the