"If you please to be at leisure to hear me, Madam," said

Monsieur de Nemours, "I'll presently make you acquainted with the true

state of the thing, and inform you of matters of so great importance to

the Viscount, that I would not even have trusted the Prince of Cleves

with them, had I not stood in need of his assistance to have the honour

to see you." "I believe," said Madam de Cleves in a very unconcerned

manner, "that anything you may give yourself the trouble of telling me,

will be to little purpose; you had better go to the Queen-Dauphin, and

plainly tell her, without using these roundabout ways, the interest you

have in that letter, since she has been told, as well as I, that it

belongs to you."

The uneasiness of mind which Monsieur de Nemours observed in Madam de

Cleves gave him the most sensible pleasure he ever knew, and lessened

his impatience to justify himself: "I don't know, Madam," replied he,

"what the Queen-Dauphin may have been told; but I am not at all

concerned in that letter; it is addressed to the Viscount." "I believe

so," replied Madam de Cleves, "but the Queen-Dauphin has heard to the

contrary, and she won't think it very probable that the Viscount's

letters should fall out of your pocket; you must therefore have some

reason, that I don't know of, for concealing the truth of this matter

from the Queen-Dauphin; I advise you to confess it to her." "I have

nothing to confess to her," says he, "the letter is not directed to me,

and if there be anyone that I would have satisfied of it, it is not the

Queen-Dauphin; but, Madam, since the Viscount's interest is nearly

concerned in this, be pleased to let me acquaint you with some matters

that are worthy of your curiosity."

Madam de Cleves by her silence

showed her readiness to hear him, and he as succinctly as possible

related to her all he had just heard from the Viscount. Though the

circumstances were naturally surprising, and proper to create

attention, yet Madam de Cleves heard them with such coldness, that she

seemed either not to believe them true, or to think them indifferent to

her; she continued in this temper until the Duke de Nemours spoke of

Madam d'Amboise's billet, which was directed to the Viscount, and was a

proof of all he had been saying; as Madam de Cleves knew that this lady

was a friend of Madam de Themines, she found some probability in what

the Duke de Nemours had said, which made her think, that the letter

perhaps was not addressed to him; this thought suddenly, and in spite

of herself, drew her out of the coldness and indifferency she had until

then been in.




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