To speak plainly, Madame de Flahaut
becomes too exigeante. I have told her that I am perfectly my own master
with respect to her, and that, having no idea of inspiring her with a
tender passion, I have no idea either of subjecting myself to one, but I
hardly think she understands my attitude toward her. Besides," he went
on, with so sudden a change of tone and sentiment that Calvert could not
forbear smiling, "I find her too agreeable to bear with equanimity her
treatment of me. The other day, at Madame de Chastellux's, her reception
of me was such that I think I would not again have troubled her with a
visit had she not sent for me to-day."
"And did you go?" asked Calvert, smiling.
"Yes," said Mr. Morris, bursting out laughing. "Of course I went,
Ned--that is the way with all of us--the women treat us with contempt
and we go away in a huff, vowing never to see them again, and they
beckon to us and back we go, glad to have a word or glance again. She
treated me very civilly indeed, and received me at her toilet--'twas a
very decent performance, I assure you, Ned. She undressed, even to the
shift, with the utmost modesty, and I would have found it a pleasant
enough experience, if a trifle astounding to my American mind, had it
not been for the presence of the Bishop of Autun, who came in and who is
confoundedly at his ease in Madame de Flahaut's society.
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